Privacy Policy

Terms Correct as of 1 Jan 2024

Introduction

This Privacy Notice helps you to understand how we use your personal information, who we share it with, and the rights that you have. For more information on your rights and how to exercise them, head straight to the Your Rights section later in this document.

This Privacy Notice applies if you share your personal information with us, for example, if you contact us with a query or we send you marketing.

We change the terms of this Privacy Notice from time to time and you should check it regularly. The last updated date is shown at the beginning of the document. If we make any material changes we will take steps to bring it to your attention.

Who we are

We are QBS (“we”, “our”, “us”) a trading name of the QBS Group which has multiple entities registered in various countries.

We are the data “controller”, which means we are responsible for deciding how and why your personal information is used. We’re also responsible for making sure it is kept safe, secure, and handled legally.

We operate to the highest standards when protecting your personal information and respecting your privacy.

Your rights

You have several ‘Data Subject Rights’ below is some information on what they are and how you can exercise them.

Right of access – You have the right to request a free copy of the personal information that we hold about you.
Right to rectification – If you think any of the personal information that we hold is inaccurate, you have the right to request it be updated. We may ask you for evidence to show it is inaccurate.
Right to erasure (also known as the Right to be Forgotten) and the Right to restriction of processing – You have the right to request that we stop processing, or delete, all of your personal information that we hold. If you exercise this right we will keep a note of your name linked to your request and it won’t prevent us from processing any new information you provide to us subsequently.
Right to withdraw Consent – Where we are relying on your consent for processing you can withdraw or change your consent at any time.

The above rights may be limited in some circumstances, for example, if fulfilling your request would reveal personal information about another person, if you ask us to delete information that we are required to have by law, or if we have compelling legitimate interests to keep it. We will let you know if that is the case and will then only use your information for these purposes. You may also be unable to continue using our services if you want us to stop processing your personal information.

If you have any general questions or want to exercise any of your rights please contact us. Our security procedures mean that we may need to request proof of identity before we disclose personal information to you in response to any request.

We encourage you to get in touch if you have any concerns with how we collect or use your personal information.

The lawful bases we use to process data

We will only ever process your information if we have a lawful basis to do so. The lawful bases we rely on are;

Contract – This is where we process your information to fulfill a contractual arrangement we have made with you.
Consent – This is where we have asked you to provide explicit permission to process your data for a particular purpose
Legitimate Interests – This is where we rely on our interests as a reason for processing, generally this is to provide you with the best products and services most securely and appropriately.

The information we collect and how we use it

We collect and use the information that you provide to us directly, for example when you register for an account; we also use cookies and other similar technologies to collect information from your devices when you interact with our advertising or use our website (you can find out more information in our cookie policy); we keep records when you speak to our customer service teams, and we take personal information from several third parties to help us manage your account and improve your online experience. For more detailed information you can read the below which outlines how we use your personal information:

To provide you with access to an account (Contract)

To register an account with us we capture information such as your name, date of birth, contact, and delivery information, and a password to protect your account (account information). We use the same information on an ongoing basis to manage and provide secure access to your account and provide you with the services you request.

To provide customer service to you (Legitimate interest)

We record calls and keep correspondence (customer service records) when you contact our customer service teams or interact with us on social media. We use these customer service records to manage your queries or complaints effectively, for quality monitoring, and to continually improve our services

To offer and manage any credit we provide to you (Contract & Legitimate Interest)

When you apply for and use credit with us we will use your account information to make searches with third parties who will give us information about you, such as your financial history. We do this to assess your creditworthiness and product suitability.
We use purchase history and payment history, along with your account information, on a cyclical basis to manage your credit facility with us.
We use your account information, purchase history, payment history, and third-party information to collect and recover money that is owed to us should your account fall into arrears. Please see the section on Third Parties we share data with and receive data from for more information

To personalize and improve your experience when you visit our website (Legitimate Interest)

We keep a record of how you interact with our website and any marketing you are exposed to, we use this data, along with online history, demographics, account information, and third-party information, to show you services and offers that we think you will be most interested in and to tailor your experience.
We use your account information, information on the devices you use to access our sites, and your interactions with us to operate personalized features across our websites, apps, and communications

To inform you about products and services that may interest you (Legitimate Interest)

We use technologies such as cookies within digital marketing networks, ad exchanges, and social media networks such as Facebook’s Custom Audience to get relevant marketing messages across to you and other customers. We share aggregated and anonymized information about the customer segments we are interested in reaching with advertising partners, so they can focus on showing adverts to those who are most likely to be interested in our products, services, and offers, and to prevent them from showing you irrelevant or repetitive advertisements.
We share limited information with selected suppliers to enable them to identify new prospective customers on our behalf and to prevent us from repeatedly advertising products or services you have already bought
We receive information on how you interact with our adverts and content on third-party websites and social media platforms (such as Google or Facebook) which we use to tailor the information that is displayed to you.

To keep in touch with you (Legitimate Interest)

When you register for an account and work with us we start to keep you up to date with news of products and services including events, offers, promotions, and other information unless you tell us you don’t want us to through your account or using the link in every email that we send to you.
When we send you communications we use records of how you interact with our website and any other marketing we’ve sent to you, along with online history, to tailor the messages to include information you are most likely to be interested in.
We use your account information to notify you about important service messages, such as material changes to this policy, product recalls, or information about your account.

If at any point you have made amendments to your contact preferences in the ‘my account’ section of our website, selecting to receive communications from us, we are operating under consent instead of legitimate interest.

To ensure the Website and the services we offer you operate properly (Legitimate Interest)

We use cookies and other similar technologies to keep track of your preferences when using our site.
We gather information about the devices you use to access our sites (desktop and mobile) for example your IP address and device type, to ensure the site is secure and works across multiple platforms.
We use information for management information, dealing with errors on our site, and general research and development.

To develop and improve our products, range, and services (Legitimate Internet)

We share insights about our customers (in an anonymized and aggregated format) with the companies we partner with. This helps them better understand the different profiles of our customers, focusing on those who are interested in them.
We may contact you to take part in customer satisfaction surveys, if you respond we collect your feedback and contributions (customer feedback). We use this information to develop the services we offer.
We use information about how you browse and engage with our website to improve our websites.
We use all information, including third-party data in the development of new products, services, and systems to ensure they work as expected and will be useful to our customers.

How long do we keep it?

We keep your personal information as long as you are a customer of ours and generally for seven years afterward to comply with legal requirements. During that time we take steps to remove any personal data as soon as we no longer need it.
We always make efforts to anonymize data and only pass over personal information that is necessary for the purposes it is being processed. We always do so securely.
We use technologies such as cookies, pixels, and device IDs within digital marketing networks, ad exchanges, and social media networks such as Linkedin to get relevant marketing messages across to you.

Comments

When visitors leave comments on the site we collect the data shown in the comments form, and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection.

An anonymized string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here: https://automattic.com/privacy/. After approval of your comment, your profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment.

Media

If you upload images to the website, you should avoid uploading images with embedded location data (EXIF GPS) included. Visitors to the website can download and extract any location data from images on the website.

Cookies

If you leave a comment on our site you may opt-in to saving your name, email address, and website in cookies. These are for your convenience so that you do not have to fill in your details again when you leave another comment. These cookies will last for one year.

If you visit our login page, we will set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies. This cookie contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser.

When you log in, we will also set up several cookies to save your login information and your screen display choices. Login cookies last for two days, and screen options cookies last for a year. If you select “Remember Me”, your login will persist for two weeks. If you log out of your account, the login cookies will be removed.

If you edit or publish an article, an additional cookie will be saved in your browser. This cookie includes no personal data and simply indicates the post ID of the article you just edited. It expires after 1 day.

Embedded content from other websites

Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the same way as if the visitor has visited the other website.

These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.