Privacy Policy

Introduction

South Coast Builders is committed to protecting the privacy and security of your personal information. This Privacy and Cookie Policy explains how we collect, use, and share your personal data when you visit our website, use our services, or interact with us in other ways. We are committed to complying with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the Data Protection Act 2018, the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003 (PECR), and other applicable data protection laws. We recognise the importance of transparency and control over your personal data and aim to be clear about how we process your information.

Information We Collect

We may collect the following types of personal information:

Identity Data: This includes your name, title, job title, company name, and other identifying information.
Contact Data: This includes your email address, telephone number, postal address, and other contact details.
Business Data: This includes information about your business, such as its name, address, industry, and size.
Technical Data: This includes your IP address, browser type and version, operating system, referring website, pages viewed on our website, time zone setting, browser plug-in types and versions, and other technical information about your device and online activity. This data may be collected through cookies, web beacons, and similar technologies.
Marketing Data: This includes your preferences for receiving marketing communications from us and your responses to marketing campaigns.
Enquiry Data: Information provided when making an enquiry, such as project details, budget, timescales, and specific requirements.
Employment Data: If you apply for a job with us, we will collect information relevant to your application, such as your CV, qualifications, employment history, references, and any other information you choose to share with us. We may also collect sensitive personal data, such as information about your health or ethnicity, but only with your explicit consent and where permitted by law.
Supplier Data: If you are a supplier to us, we will collect contact and business information about your company, including contact persons, bank details, and payment terms.
CCTV Data: We may operate CCTV systems at our premises for security purposes. These systems may capture images of individuals entering and leaving our premises. We will only use CCTV data for security purposes and will retain it only for as long as necessary.

How We Collect Information

We collect information about you in the following ways:

Directly from you: When you provide information to us, such as when you contact us through our website, by email, or by phone, when you request a quote, when you fill out a contact form, when you subscribe to our newsletter, or when you enter into a contract with us.
Automatically: When you visit our website, we automatically collect technical data about your device and online activity through the use of cookies and similar technologies. This includes information about your browsing actions and patterns.
From third parties: We may receive information about you from third parties, such as business directories, marketing agencies, lead generation companies, or referral partners. We will only do this if we have a legitimate reason for doing so, such as a legitimate interest in marketing to your business, and we will inform you when we do so, usually through a privacy notice. We will ensure that any third parties we obtain data from have obtained your consent to share that data with us.
Publicly available sources: We may collect information about you from publicly available sources, such as Companies House or your company's website.

How We Use Your Information

We may use your personal information for the following purposes:

Providing and managing our services: To fulfil our contractual obligations, to provide you with the services you have requested, to manage your account, to process payments, and to provide customer support.
Communicating with you: To respond to your enquiries, to provide you with updates about our services, to send you service-related communications, and to send you marketing communications if you have opted in to receive them.
Improving our website and services: To analyze how our website is used, to identify areas for improvement, to personalize your experience, and to conduct market research.
Legal compliance: To comply with applicable laws and regulations, such as tax laws, employment laws, and data protection laws.
Marketing: To send you marketing communications about our services that we think may be of interest to you, but only if you have given us your explicit consent to do so. You can opt out of receiving marketing communications at any time by clicking4 on the unsubscribe link in our emails or by contacting us directly. We will not share your data with third parties for their own marketing purposes without your explicit consent.
Recruitment: To process job applications, manage our recruitment process, assess your suitability for employment, and comply with employment law requirements.
Supplier Management: To manage our relationships with our suppliers, to process payments, and to communicate with suppliers about orders and deliveries.
Security: To protect our premises and our systems from unauthorized access and to prevent fraud.

We use cookies and similar technologies on our website to collect technical data about your device and online activity. Cookies are small text files that are placed on your device when you visit a website. We use the following types of cookies:

Strictly necessary cookies: These cookies are essential for the website to function properly and cannot be disabled. They enable you to navigate the website and use its features, such as accessing secure areas. These cookies do not gather information about you that could be used for marketing or remembering where you have been on the internet. We rely on legitimate interest as the lawful basis for these cookies.
Performance cookies (Analytics): These cookies collect information about how you use the website, such as which pages you visit most often, and if you get error messages from web pages. This information helps us to improve the website's performance and user experience. These cookies do not collect information that identifies you personally. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. We may use Google Analytics or similar services. We will obtain your consent to use these cookies.
Functionality cookies: These cookies allow the website to remember your preferences, such as your language or location. They may also be used to provide services you have asked for, such as watching a video or commenting on a blog. The information these cookies collect may be anonymised, and they cannot track your browsing activity on other websites. We will obtain your consent to use these cookies.
Targeting/Advertising cookies: These cookies are used to personalise your experience and to show you relevant advertisements. They may also be used to limit the number of times you see an advertisement and measure the effectiveness of advertising campaigns. We will obtain your explicit consent to use these cookies. We currently do not use these cookies but will update this policy if this changes.

You have the right to choose whether or not to accept cookies. Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can usually modify your browser setting to decline cookies if you prefer. However, please note that disabling certain cookies, particularly strictly necessary cookies, may affect the functionality of the website. You can manage your cookie preferences at any time through our cookie consent banner or by adjusting your browser settings. For more information about cookies and how to manage them, please visit the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) website:

https://ico.org.uk/for-the-public/online/cookies/.

Sharing Your Information

We may share your personal information with the following categories of third parties:

Service providers: We may share your information with service providers who perform services on our behalf, such as IT support, cloud storage providers, marketing agencies, payment processors, and delivery companies. We will only share information with service providers who have appropriate data protection measures in place and who are contractually obligated to process your data only in accordance with our instructions.
Professional advisors: We may share your information with our professional advisors, such as lawyers, accountants, and auditors, where necessary for them to provide their services.
Legal authorities: We may disclose your information to legal authorities if we are required to do so by law or if we believe that such disclosure is necessary to protect our legal rights or the rights of others, including for the purposes of preventing and detecting fraud.
Business transfers: If we are involved in a merger, acquisition, or sale of all or a portion of our assets, your information may be transferred as part of that transaction, subject to the acquiring entity complying with the terms of this privacy policy.
Other third parties: We will not sell or rent your personal data to any other third parties for their marketing purposes without your explicit consent.

Transferring Your Information Outside the UK

We may transfer your personal data to countries outside the UK, but only if we have appropriate safeguards in place to protect your information. These safeguards may include:

Adequacy decisions: Transferring data to countries that the UK has deemed to have an adequate level of data protection.
Standard contractual clauses: Using standard contractual clauses approved by the UK's Information Commissioner's Office (ICO).
Binding corporate rules: Implementing binding corporate rules that have been approved by the ICO.

Storing Your Information

We will retain your personal information for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes for which it was collected. The length of time we retain your information will depend on the type of information, the purpose for which it was collected, and applicable legal requirements. For example, we may need to retain certain information for a longer period to comply with tax laws or other legal obligations. We have a data retention policy in place that sets out the specific retention periods for different types of data. Once your information is no longer needed, we will securely delete or anonymise it.

Your Rights

You have the following rights regarding your personal information, and these rights are enforceable against us:

Right of access: You have the right to obtain confirmation from us as to whether or not personal data concerning you are being processed, and, where that is the case, access to the personal data and the information listed in Article 15 of the GDPR.
Right to rectification: You have the right to request that we correct any inaccuracies in your personal information.
Right to erasure ("right to be forgotten"): You have the right to request that we delete your personal information under certain circumstances, such as when the data is no longer necessary for the purpose for which it was collected, or when you have withdrawn your consent.
Right to restriction of processing: You have the right to restrict the processing of your personal information under certain circumstances, such as when you contest5 the accuracy of the data or when the processing is unlawful.
Right to data portability: You have the right to receive your personal information in a structured, commonly used, and machine-readable format, and you have the right to transmit that data to another controller without hindrance from us.
Right to object: You have the right to object to the processing of your personal information under certain circumstances, such as when we are processing your data for direct marketing purposes or when we are processing your data based on our legitimate interests.
Right to withdraw consent: If we are processing your personal data based on your consent, you have the right to withdraw your consent at any time. Withdrawing your consent will not affect the lawfulness of processing based on consent before its withdrawal.
Right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority: You have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), the UK's supervisory authority for data protection issues, if you believe that we have not complied with data protection laws. You can contact the ICO at https://ico.org.uk/.

To exercise any of these rights, please contact us using the contact details provided below. We will respond to your request within one month. We may require you to verify your identity before we can respond to your request.

Children's Privacy

Our website and services are not intended for children under the age of 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you become aware that a child under 13 has provided us with personal information, please contact us immediately so that we can delete the information.

Security

We have implemented appropriate technical and organizational measures to protect your personal information from unauthorised access, use, or disclosure. These measures include:

Encryption of data in transit and at rest.
Firewalls and intrusion detection systems.
Access controls and password protection.
Regular security assessments and vulnerability scanning.
Staff training on data protection and security best practices.

While we strive to protect your personal information, no method of transmission over the Internet, or method of electronic storage, is 100% secure. Therefore, we cannot guarantee the absolute security of your information.

Changes to this Policy

We may update this Privacy and Cookie Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices or legal requirement. Any changes will be posted on our website, and we encourage you to review this policy periodically. Your continued use of our website or services following the posting of such changes constitutes your acceptance of the revised policy.

If you have any questions about this Privacy and Cookie Policy, please contact us at:

South Coast Builders

1 Manor Ave, Poole, Dorset, BH12 4LB

Email: andy@scbuilders.co.uk