1. Introduction
1.1 We are committed to safeguarding the privacy of our website visitors; in this policy we explain how we will handle your personal data.
1.2 We will ask you to consent to our use of cookies in accordance with the terms of this policy when you first visit our website.
2. How we use your personal data
2.1 In this Section we have set out:
(a) the general categories of personal data that we may process;
(b) the purposes for which we may process personal data; and
(c) the legal bases of the processing.
2.2 We may process data about your use of our website (“usage data“). The usage data may include your IP address, geographical location, browser type and version, operating system, referral source, length of visit, page views and website navigation paths, as well as information about the timing, frequency and pattern of your service use. The source of the usage data is our analytics tracking system. This usage data may be processed for the purposes of analysing the use of the website. Please see clause 10 of this policy for further information. The legal basis for our processing of usage data is our legitimate interests, namely the proper administration of our website and business.
2.3 We may process information contained in any enquiry you submit to us regarding services (“enquiry data“). The enquiry data may be processed for the purposes of offering, marketing and selling relevant services to you. The legal bases for this processing is consent and our legitimate interests.
2.4 We may process information that you provide to us for the purpose of subscribing to our email notifications and/or newsletters (“notification data“). The notification data may be processed for the purposes of sending you the relevant notifications and/or newsletters. The legal basis for this processing is consent.
2.5 We will send email marketing to prospective business customers who have been carefully selected from purchased lists of publicly available corporate data. The legal basis we use for this is our legitimate interest to reach out to fellow businesses. We have done a balancing test to ensure that our legitimate interests do not interfere with your data subject rights and we aim not to be intrusive. You can opt out at any time by using the unsubscribe button at the bottom of the email. If you unsubscribe from our email marketing list, we will keep your personal data on a suppression list so that we do not email you again in error. This is because we have a legal requirement to ensure that your absolute right to object to direct marketing is respected.
2.6 We may process information contained in or relating to any communication that you send to us (“correspondence data“). The correspondence data may include the communication content and metadata associated with the communication. Our website will generate the metadata associated with communications made using the website contact forms. The correspondence data may be processed for the purposes of communicating with you and record-keeping. The legal basis for this processing is our legitimate interests, namely the proper administration of our website and business and communications with users.
2.7 In addition to the specific purposes for which we may process your personal data set out in this Section 2, we may also process any of your personal data where such processing is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation to which we are subject, or in order to protect your vital interests or the vital interests of another natural person.
2.8 Please do not supply any other person’s personal data to us, unless we prompt you to do so.
3. Providing your personal data to others
3.1 We may disclose your personal data to any member of our group of companies (this means our subsidiaries, our ultimate holding company and all its subsidiaries) insofar as reasonably necessary for the purposes set out in this policy.
3.2 We may disclose your personal data to our insurers and/or professional advisers insofar as reasonably necessary for the purposes of obtaining and maintaining insurance coverage, managing risks, obtaining professional advice and managing legal disputes.
3.3 We may disclose notification or enquiry data to our suppliers or subcontractors, namely our email marketing contractor. insofar as is reasonably necessary for the purposes of facilitating the distribution of our email notifications and/or newsletters.
3.4 Visitors to our website may also submit comments on blog posts that we have published on our website. To facilitate this function on our website we use a service called “Akismet” which enables the comments to be left and acts as an anti-spam service. When a site visitor leaves a comment Akismet will collect the commenter’s name and email address together with the relevant comment as well as the commenter’s IP address, user agent, referrer, and Site URL. Akistmet is a service provided by Automattic Inc, a company based in the US. Further information on how they process and use this information can be found at: https://automattic.com/privacy-notice/
3.5 In addition to the specific disclosures of personal data set out in this Section 3, we may also disclose your personal data where such disclosure is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation to which we are subject, or in order to protect your vital interests or the vital interests of another natural person.
4. International transfers of your personal data
4.1 In this Section 4, we provide information about the circumstances in which your personal data may be transferred to countries outside the European Economic Area (EEA).
4.2 Our Email marketing subcontractor, Mailchimp and Automattic who provide our website commentary function are both situated in the United States and have servers and offices located in the United States. Information shared with these parties may be transferred to, stored, or processed in the United States. The European Commission has made an “adequacy decision” with respect to the data protection laws of each of the United States. Transfers to the United States will be protected by appropriate safeguards, namely the use of standard data protection clauses adopted or approved by the European Commission in the EU-US Privacy Shield.
5. Retaining and deleting personal data
5.1 This Section 5 sets out our data retention policies and procedure, which are designed to help ensure that we comply with our legal obligations in relation to the retention and deletion of personal data.
5.2 Personal data that we process for any purpose or purposes shall not be kept for longer than is necessary for that purpose or those purposes.
5.3 In some cases it may not always be possible for us to specify in advance the periods for which your personal data will be retained however we will determine the period of retention based on the following criteria:
(a) we will retain enquiry data following a data subject’s enquiry submitted to us. In circumstances where the data subject (or their business) has not become a customer of ours we would retain the enquiry data for our future reference for a period of five years;
(b) we will retain notification data for the purposes of facilitating the distribution of our email notification/newsletter to you for as long as you have consented to receive such communications; and
(c) the period of retention of correspondence data will be determined based on whether there is an ongoing relationship as a result of the initial enquiry and on our assessment of whether we may need that data to comply with our legal obligations or for our legitimate business interests.
5.4 Notwithstanding the other provisions of this Section 5, we may retain your personal data where such retention is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation to which we are subject, or in order to protect your vital interests or the vital interests of another natural person.
6. Amendments
6.1 We may update this policy from time to time by publishing a new version on our website.
6.2 You should check this page occasionally to ensure you are happy with any changes to this policy.
7. Your rights
7.1 In this Section 7, we have summarised the rights that you have under data protection law. Some of the rights are complex, and not all of the details have been included in our summaries. Accordingly, you should read the relevant laws and guidance from the regulatory authorities for a full explanation of these rights.
7.2 Your principal rights under data protection law are:
(a) the right to access;
(b) the right to rectification;
(c) the right to erasure;
(d) the right to restrict processing;
(e) the right to object to processing;
(f) the right to data portability;
(g) the right to complain to a supervisory authority; and
(h) the right to withdraw consent.
7.3 You have the right to confirmation as to whether or not we process your personal data and, where we do, access to the personal data, together with certain additional information. That additional information includes details of the purposes of the processing, the categories of personal data concerned and the recipients of the personal data. Providing the rights and freedoms of others are not affected, we will supply to you a copy of your personal data. The first copy will be provided free of charge, but additional copies may be subject to a reasonable fee.
7.4 You have the right to have any inaccurate personal data about you rectified and, taking into account the purposes of the processing, to have any incomplete personal data about you completed.
7.5 In some circumstances you have the right to the erasure of your personal data without undue delay. Those circumstances include: the personal data are no longer necessary in relation to the purposes for which they were collected or otherwise processed; you withdraw consent to consent-based processing; the processing is for direct marketing purposes; and the personal data have been unlawfully processed. However, there are certain general exclusions of the right to erasure. Those general exclusions include where processing is necessary: for exercising the right of freedom of expression and information; for compliance with a legal obligation; or for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims.
7.6 In some circumstances you have the right to restrict the processing of your personal data. Those circumstances are: you contest the accuracy of the personal data; processing is unlawful but you oppose erasure; we no longer need the personal data for the purposes of our processing, but you require personal data for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims; and you have objected to processing, pending the verification of that objection. Where processing has been restricted on this basis, we may continue to store your personal data. However, we will only otherwise process it: with your consent; for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims; for the protection of the rights of another natural or legal person; or for reasons of important public interest.
7.7 You have the right to object to our processing of your personal data on grounds relating to your particular situation, but only to the extent that the legal basis for the processing is that the processing is necessary for: the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of any official authority vested in us; or the purposes of the legitimate interests pursued by us or by a third party. If you make such an objection, we will cease to process the personal information unless we can demonstrate compelling legitimate grounds for the processing which override your interests, rights and freedoms, or the processing is for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims.
7.8 You have the right to object to our processing of your personal data for direct marketing purposes (including profiling for direct marketing purposes). If you make such an objection, we will cease to process your personal data for this purpose.
7.9 You have the right to object to our processing of your personal data for scientific or historical research purposes or statistical purposes on grounds relating to your particular situation, unless the processing is necessary for the performance of a task carried out for reasons of public interest.
7.10 To the extent that the legal basis for our processing of your personal data is consent, and such processing is carried out by automated means, you have the right to receive your personal data from us in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format. However, this right does not apply where it would adversely affect the rights and freedoms of others.
7.11 If you consider that our processing of your personal information infringes data protection laws, you have a legal right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority responsible for data protection. You may do so in the EU member state of your habitual residence, your place of work or the place of the alleged infringement.
7.12 To the extent that the legal basis for our processing of your personal information is consent, you have the right to withdraw that consent at any time. Withdrawal will not affect the lawfulness of processing before the withdrawal.
7.13 You may exercise any of your rights in relation to your personal data by written notice to us, in addition to the other methods specified in this Section 7.
8. About cookies
8.1 A cookie is a file containing an identifier (a string of letters and numbers) that is sent by a web server to a web browser and is stored by the browser. The identifier is then sent back to the server each time the browser requests a page from the server.
8.2 Cookies may be either “persistent” cookies or “session” cookies: a persistent cookie will be stored by a web browser and will remain valid until its set expiry date, unless deleted by the user before the expiry date; a session cookie, on the other hand, will expire at the end of the user session, when the web browser is closed.
8.3 Cookies do not typically contain any information that personally identifies a user, but personal information that we store about you may be linked to the information stored in and obtained from cookies.
9. Cookies that we use
9.1 We use cookies for the following purposes:
(a) security – we use cookies as an element of the security measures used to protect fraudulent use of login credentials, and to protect our website and services generally;
(b) analysis – we use cookies to help us to analyse the use and performance of our website and services; and
(c) cookie consent – we use cookies to store your preferences in relation to the use of cookies more generally.
10. Cookies used by our service providers
10.1 Our service providers use cookies and those cookies may be stored on your computer when you visit our website.
10.2 We use Google Analytics to analyse the use of our website. Google Analytics gathers information about website use by means of cookies. The information gathered relating to our website is used to create reports about the use of our website. Google’s privacy policy is available at: https://www.google.com/policies/privacy/.
10.3 We use Google Tag Manger to analyse the use of our website. Google Tag Manger gathers information about website use by means of cookies. The information gathered relating to our website is used to create reports about the use of our website. Google’s privacy policy is available at: https://www.google.com/policies/privacy/.
10.4 We use Hotjar to analyse the use of our website. Hotjar gathers information about website use by means of cookies. The information gathered relating to our website is used to create reports about the use of our website. Hotjar’s privacy policy is available at: https://www.hotjar.com/privacy
11. Managing cookies
11.1 Most browsers allow you to refuse to accept cookies and to delete cookies. The methods for doing so vary from browser to browser, and from version to version. You can however obtain up-to-date information about blocking and deleting cookies via these links:
(a) https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/95647?hl=en (Chrome);
(b) https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/enable-and-disable-cookies-website-preferences (Firefox);
(c) http://www.opera.com/help/tutorials/security/cookies/ (Opera);
(d) https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/help/17442/windows-internet-explorer-delete-manage-cookies (Internet Explorer);
(e) https://support.apple.com/kb/PH21411 (Safari); and
(f) https://privacy.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-10-microsoft-edge-and-privacy (Edge)
11.2 Blocking all cookies will have a negative impact upon the usability of many websites.
11.3 If you block cookies, you will not be able to use all the features on our website.
12. Our details
12.1 This website is owned and operated by Budgetingblueprints.
12.2 We are registered in England and Wales under registration number 09516007, and our registered office is at Lower Wardington, Banbury, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom OX17 1SH.
12.3 You can contact us:
(a) by post, using the postal address given above;
(b) using our website contact form;
(c) by telephone, on the contact number published on our website from time to time; or
(d) by email, using the email address published on our website from time to time.