Privacy policy

What is personal data?

Personal data is defined by the General Data Protection Regulation (EU Regulation 2016/679) (GDPR) as ‘any information relating to an identifiable person who can be directly or indirectly identified in particular by reference to an identifier’. In simpler terms, it is any information about you that enables you to be identified. Personal data covers obvious information such as your name and contact details, but also covers less obvious information such as identification numbers, electronic location data and other online identifiers.

Your rights

Under GDPR you have the following rights which we will always work to uphold:

a) The right to access the personal data we hold about you.

b) The right to have your personal data rectified if any of your personal data held by us is inaccurate or incomplete.

c) The right to be forgotten i.e. the right to ask us to delete or otherwise dispose of any of your personal data that we have.

d) The right to restrict (i.e. prevent) the processing of your personal data.

e) The right to object to us using your personal data for a particular purpose or purposes.

f) The right to data portability. This means that if you have provided personal data to us directly, we use it with your consent or for the performance of a contract, and that data is processed using automated means.  You can ask us for a copy of that personal data to re-use with another service or business in many cases.

g) Rights relating to automated decision-making and profiling.

Further information about your rights can also be obtained from the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) or your local Citizens Advice Bureau. If you have any cause for complaint about our use of your personal data, you have the right to contact us or lodge a complaint with the ICO.

Why do we collect personal information?

We use personal information so that we can take the steps necessary to assess whether we can enter into a contract with you and perform that contract with you. It can also help us to:

• Improve our service to you and others.
• Comply with any legal requirements relating to your use of our service.
• Provide you with news and information to keep you informed of relevant industry developments.
• To provide you with service communications so we can perform our obligations to you.
• With your consent, to provide you with marketing communications about news or goods or services that are similar to what you have enquired about or purchased.

What information do we collect?

When you interact with our website we collect the data as shown on the form, as well as the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection. This is so that we can provide a service, news or signpost you to a third party for support. We will also receive information about our site’s performance and effectiveness which will help us troubleshoot and provide statistical research to improve our service. We may embed video, news and social media posts from other websites which behaves in the exact same way if the visitor has visited the other website. These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed third-party tracking and monitor your interaction with tat embedded content such as tracking your interaction on whether you have an account and are logged into that website.

If you call us we will automatically collect the phone number used to call us via our service provider, Ring Central. Learn more about Ring Central’s privacy policy.

We may also receive information from other sources such as organisations we work closely with, or directly from you when you correspond with us. This may include proof of identity, financial information and information relating to the services you are seeking.

How we use personal data

Under GDPR, we must always have a lawful basis for using personal data. This may be because the data is necessary for our performance of a contract with you, because you have consented to our use of your personal data or because it is in our legitimate business interests to use it. Your personal data may be used for one of the following purposes:

• Providing and managing your account
• Supplying our services to you; your personal details are required so that we can enter into a contract with you
• Personalising and tailoring our services for you
• Communicating with you; this may include responding to emails or calls from you
• Supplying you with information by email, post or other communication methods that you have agreed to. You may unsubscribe or opt-out at any time by clicking on the link in our emails or by emailing hello@simpledesignworks.co.uk.

Where permitted by law, we may also use your personal data for marketing purposes, which may include contacting you by email and/or telephone and /or text message and/or post and/or other communication methods with information, news and offers on our services. You will not be sent any unlawful marketing or spam. We will always work to fully protect your rights and comply with our obligations under the GDPR and the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003, and you will always have the opportunity to opt-out.

How and where we store/transfer personal data

We aim to store or transfer your personal data in the UK or elsewhere in the EEA where possible so that it will be fully protected under GDPR.  If your data is transferred outside the EEA, we will only do so if adequate protection measures are in place to comply with data protection legislation. We use strict procedures and security features to try to prevent unauthorised access:

• We store all data in specific company applications unique to us.
• All application access is via secure password.
• Your data is deleted once we no longer have a relevant use for it or it has passed the relevant expiry date.

Who we might share your information with

You agree that for the purposes set out in ‘Why do we collect personal information?’ that we have the right to share your personal information with selected third parties who we appoint to provide services to you.  These include business partners, subsidiaries, suppliers and sub-contractors for the performance of any contract we enter into with you. This may also include analytics and search engine providers that assist us in the improvement and optimisation of our site and customer survey providers to receive feedback and improve our services. Our third party service providers include:

• Barker Brettell who are based in the UK.  You will be notified of this and you may opt out at any time. Learn more about Barker Brettell’s privacy policy.
• Hubspot who provide our customer relationship management and marketing system Hubspot is based outside the EEA in the US and they process the information that we collect from you.  Learn more about
  Hubspot’s privacy policy.
• Microsoft 365 who provide our email and other software, and are located in the EEA. Learn more about Microsoft’s privacy policy.

You may also wish to read our cookie policy to learn more about our marketing partners.

In some limited circumstances, we may be legally required to share certain personal data, which might include yours, if we are involved in legal proceedings or complying with legal obligations, a court order, or the instructions of a government authority.

Accessing your personal data

If you want to know what personal data we have about you, you can ask us for details of that personal data and a copy of it (where any such personal data is held). This is known as a ‘subject access request’. All subject access requests should be made in writing; please email or write to our Data Protection Compliance Manager at the address shown below. There is not normally any charge for a subject access request however if your request is ‘manifestly unfounded or excessive’ (e.g. if you make repetitive requests) a fee may be charged to cover our administrative costs in responding.

We will normally respond to your subject access request within 14 days and, in any case, not more than one calendar month of receiving it. Normally, we aim to provide a complete response, including a copy of your personal data within that time. In some cases, particularly if your request is more complex, more time may be required up to a maximum of three months from the date we receive your request. You will be kept fully informed of our progress.

Changes to our Privacy Policy

We may update this policy from time to time so you may want to check it each time you visit our website. We last reviewed this policy on 6 April 2022.