This Privacy Policy describes how we gain and use your data; Why we can do so by the law? who has access to your data and what your rights are?
Please review it carefully.
Sympathetic Works takes your privacy seriously and uses your personal data as further explained in this privacy policy. We are the “controller” of the personal data you provide to us.
You have the right to object to us processing your personal data for our legitimate business interests or for direct marketing purposes (including any related profiling). For more information about your rights and how you can exercise them, please see the section about your rights and how you can exercise them, please see the section ‘Your rights’.
Personal Data we may collect and why?
Personal data is any information which identifies you personally whether directly (your name) or indirectly (your use of our products and services).
We may collect the following data about you:
- Contact details: your name, email address, and telephone number so that we can contact you in response to an enquiry you make via our site or concerning the services we have agreed to provide to you.
- Correspondence: we collect any additional personal data you may provide, if you contact us by email, letter or telephone, through our site, by submitting a comment on our site, or by any other means.
- Survey responses: information from surveys that we use for research purposes, if you choose to respond to them;
- Detail of visits to the Sites: details of your visits to our site, including but not limited to, traffic data, location data, weblogs and other communication data, whether this is required for our billing purposes or otherwise and the resources that you access.
Protection of Personal Data
We have reviewed and implemented appropriate internal security procedures restricting access to and disclosure of personal data on our information systems and our premises.
What are Cookies
Small text files that are stored on your computer when you visit websites are called Cookies. The cookies are not computer programs and can’t read other information saved on your hard drive. They cannot be used to disseminate viruses or get a user’s email address etc. They only contain and transfer to the website as much information as the users themselves have disclosed to that website.
We use cookies to make our website easier for you to use and to identify which pages are being used. This helps us improve our website and allows us to analyse data about our website. We will use this information for statistical analysis purposes only.
Analytics on cookies
We use analytics to measure how many visitors are using the website, which pages interest them. This helps us to improve the performance of our site. This involves storing cookies for various lengths of time.
For more information please visit Google Analytics.
How we use your data
We use your data for the following purposes:
To provide you with the products and services you have requested
We use your data to accept you as a new or returning customer to provide you with the products and services you have requested under the Trading Terms or Terms of Trading.
To send you service communications, including changes to our Trading Terms or Terms of Trading
We use the contact details you have provided to us so that we can communicate with you about the products and services that we provide. Including to let you know about major changes to those products and services or the Trading Terms of Trading between us or to any related information.
Direct marketing
If you have provided your consent or we otherwise have the right to do so, we may use your contact details to send you direct marketing and keep you informed of promotional offers by email, SMS, post or telephone relating to our products and services.
We do not share your information with third parties for marketing purposes.
Your Information is not sold or rented to third parties.
To track your usage of our website, communications, products and services
Cookies and similar technologies are used to track your activity on our site so that we can provide important features and functionality on our site, monitor its usage, and provide you with a more personalised experience.
To provide and improve customer support
We use your data to be able to provide and improve the customer support we provide to you (for example, where you have questions about our products and services).
To maintain our records and improve data accuracy
Like any business, we process personal data in the course of maintaining and administering our internal records. This includes processing your data to ensure that the information we hold about you is kept up to date and accurate.
If you feel that any information we hold about you is out of date, incomplete or you would like it to be removed from our records please contact us as soon as possible.
To respond to enquiries, complaints and disputes
We use the personal data we hold about you to help us respond to any enquiries or complaints you have made, or deal with any dispute which may arise in the course of us providing our products and services to you, in the most effective manner.
To investigate, detect and prevent fraud and comply with our legal obligations.
In certain circumstances, we use your data only to the extent required to enable us to comply with our legal obligations, including for fraud detection, investigation and prevention purposes. This may require us to provide your data to law enforcement agencies if they request it.
Legal grounds for the processing
Data protection law requires us to only process your data if we satisfy one or more legal grounds. These are set out in data protection law and we rely on several different grounds for the processing we carry out. These are as follows:
Necessary for the performance of a contract and to comply with our legal obligations
We must process your basic contact details, payment details and information about the business you represent for the performance of the Trading Terms or Terms of Trading between us. In particular, we rely on this legal ground to:
- Provide you with the products and services;
- Communicate with you about the products and services that we provide to you including to let you know about major changes to these products and services or the Trading Terms or Terms of Trading between us or to any related information;
- Provide and improve customer support; and
- Notify you about changes to our service
If you choose not to give some or all of the aforementioned information to us, this may affect our ability to provide our products and services to you.
In certain circumstances, we also use your data only to the extent required to enable us to comply with our legal obligations, including to detect, investigate and prevent fraud.
Necessary for our legitimate business interests or those of a third party
It is sometimes necessary to collect and use your data for our legitimate interests as a business, which are to:
- Provide you with products and services that are as useful and beneficial as possible, including by personalising our contact with you and making sure we tell you about all the offers that are relevant to you;
- Better understand our customer base so that we can improve our products and services and marketing activities (which could also benefit you);
- Comply with our contractual obligations to third parties;
- Develop and improve our site to enhance the customer experience;
- Train our staff so that we can provide you with better customer service;
- Respond to any enquiries or complaints you have made, or deal with any dispute which may arise in the course of us providing our products and services to you; and
- To ensure that content from our site is presented most adequately for you and your computer;
- Ensure effective operational management and internal administration of our business document retention, compliance with regulatory guidance and exercise or defence of legal claims.
Where we think there is a risk that one of your interests or fundamental rights and freedoms may be affected, we will not process your data unless there is another legal ground for us to do so (either that we have obtained your consent to the processing of it is necessary for us to perform our contract with you or to comply with our legal obligations).
Who we share your data with
We may disclose your data if we are under a duty to disclose or share your data to comply with any legal obligation, or to protect the rights, property, or safety, of our business, our customers or others. This includes, in specific cases, exchanging information with other organisations for fraud protection.
In some cases, the personal data we collect from you may, for the purposes set out above, be transferred outside the European Economic Area (EEA) and such destinations may not have laws which protect your data to the same extent as in the EEA. We are required by data protection law to ensure that where we or our “processors” to transfer your data outside of the EEA, it is treated securely and is protected against unauthorised access, loss or destruction, unlawful processing and any processing which is inconsistent with the purposes set out in this Privacy Policy.
How long we keep your data for
We retain your data for no longer than is necessary for the purposes(s) for which it was provided. What this means in practice will vary between different types of data. When determining the relevant retention periods, we consider factors including:
- Legal obligation(s) under applicable law to retain data for a certain period;
- Statute of limitations under applicable law;
- Potential or actual disputes; and
- Guidelines issued by relevant data protection authorities.
Otherwise, we securely erase your data from our systems when it is no longer needed.
Your rights
You have the following rights regarding your data:
| Rights | What does this mean |
| 1. Rights to be informed | You have the right to be provided with clear, transparent and easily understandable information about how we use your data and your rights. This is why we ate providing you with the information in the privacy policy. |
| 2. Right of access | You have the right to obtain access to your data (if we are processing it) and certain other information (similar to that provided in the Privacy Policy). This is so you’re aware and can check that we are using your data following data protection law, |
| 3. Rights to rectification | You are entitled to have your data corrected if it is inaccurate or incomplete. |
| 4. Right to erasure | This is also known as ‘the right to be forgotten’ and, in simple terms, enable you to request the deletion or removal of your data where there is no compelling reason for us to keep using it. This is not a general right to erasure; there are exceptions. |
| 5. Right to restrict processing | You have the right to ‘block’ or suppress further use of your data in certain circumstances. When processing is restricted, we can still store your data, but may not use it further. |
| 6. Right of data portability | You have the right to obtain and reuse your data in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format in certain circumstances. Also, where certain conditions apply, you have the right to have such information transferred directly to a third party. |
| 7. Right to object to processing | You have the right to object to us processing your data for our legitimate business interests or for direct marketing purposes (including in each case any related profiling.) |
| 8. Right to withdraw consent to the processing | If you have given your consent to us to process your data for a particular purpose (for example, direct marketing), you have the right to withdraw your consent at any time (although if you do so, it does not mean that any processing of your data up to that point is unlawful). |
| 9. Right to make a complaint to the data protection authorities | You have the right to make a complaint to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) if you are unhappy with how we have handled your data or believe our processing of your data does not comply with data protection law. |
How to contact us
If you would like to exercise your data protection rights or if you are unhappy with how we have handled your data, please feel free to contact us by using the details set out on our site. Contact us.
If you’re not satisfied with our response to any enquiries or complaint or believe our processing of your data does not comply with data protection law, you can make a complaint to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) by:
- Writing to: Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF
- Calling 0303 123 1113: or
- Submitting a message through the ICO’s website at ico.org.uk
Links to other websites
Our website may contain hyperlinks to websites owned and operated by third parties.
This Privacy Policy does not apply to those other websites.
We encourage you to read the privacy statements on the other websites you visit, as they will govern the use of any personal data you provide when visiting those websites. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for the privacy practises of such third-party websites and your use of such websites is at your own risk.
Changes to this Privacy Policy
This Privacy Policy was last updated on 15th August 2019.
This Privacy Policy may be updated from time to time, so you may want to check it each time you provide personal data to us.