Privacy Policy for Towing Centres Ltd website

Privacy Policy relating to the Towing Centres UK Ltd website www.towingcentres.com. Latest amendment made on: 14/02/2022.

In this agreement, the ‘Website’ means the Towing Centres UK Ltd website at www.towingcentres.com, a private company limited which is registered in Rotherham under company number 03858022 with its registered office at Units 2-3 Chapel Lane, Canklow Rd, Rotherham S60 2JD.

At Towing Centres UK Ltd specialise in the supply and service of Towing related products here in the UK. We are committed to ensuring any data is collected and processed to the full extent of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR, 25th May 2018) and any other applicable laws and regulations that relate to data protection and privacy. Only information that you have consented to giving; is needed to complete a contract with you (formal or informal); or that we have legitimate interest in collecting and processing will be held on our databases – we will only keep information for as long as it is relevant in order to achieve 100% customer satisfaction.

Towing Centres UK Ltd is committed to protecting your privacy and developing technology that gives you a safe online experience. This Privacy Policy applies to the Towing Centres UK Ltd Website and governs data collection and usage. By using the Website, you consent to the data practices described in this policy.

The Website is operated by Towing Centres UK Ltd at Towone Towing Centre, 40 Havelock Street, Hessle Road, Hull, HU3 4JH. Please address enquiries by post to that address, by e-mail to info@towingcentres.com.

The Towing Centres UK Ltd site may link to other sites which will not be covered by the Towing Centres UK Ltd privacy policy. You should check the privacy policy of each site before providing information to it.

Privacy Policy

The data controller is Towing Centres UK Ltd (referred to in this policy as “we” or “us”).

We are committed to putting our customers ahead of business when it comes to collecting, using and protecting your personal data. This privacy and cookies policy (“Policy”) outlines how we intend to do that. In this Policy we explain:

• The types of personal data that we collect.
• How and why we collect and use your personal data.
• When and why we share personal data with persons and organisations of interest.
• The rights and choices you have when it comes to your personal data.

We offer a wide range of products and services; this Policy applies to you if you use our services (referred to in this Policy as “our Services”). Using our Services means:

• Ordering or product or service over the phone, or online or otherwise using any of the websites (“our Websites”) where this Policy is posted.
• Holding a trade account with Towing Centres UK Ltd.
• Having a registered online user account for our Websites.

This Policy also applies if you contact us or we contact you about our Services.

Some other parts of our business may need to collect and use personal data to provide you with their products and services; including products and services at our branches in Hull and Rotherham and our other online services such as eBay. They have their own privacy polices that explain how they use your personal data.

Our Websites may contain links to other websites operated by other organisations that have their own privacy policies. Please make sure you read the terms and conditions and privacy policy carefully before providing any personal data on a website as we do not accept any responsibility or liability for websites of other organisations.

1. Personal data we collect

When you register for a trade account for our Services, you may provide us with:

• Your personal details, including your postal and billing addresses, email addresses, phone numbers, date of birth and title, company name, company registration and VAT number and references.
• Information relating to your trade account, such as areas of our Services that are of interest to you.
• Your account details, such as account number and any username or password that you have chosen.
• You vehicle details or information about your company’s vehicle fleet, including vehicle registration number, make, model and year, and any modifications there might be on your vehicle.

When you shop with us online or browse our Websites, we may collect:

• Information about your online purchases (for example, what you have bought when and where you bought it and how you paid for it).
• Information about your online browsing behaviour on our Websites and information about when you click on one of our adverts (including those shows on other organisations’ websites).
• Information about any device you have used to access our Services (including the make, model and operating system, IP address, browser type and mobile device identifiers).
• You vehicle details or information, including vehicle registration number, make, model and year, and any modifications there might be on your vehicle.

When you use a registered online user account with us, we may collect:

• Transactional information.
• Your personal details, including your postal and billing addresses, email addresses, phone numbers, date of birth and title, company name, company registration and VAT number and references.
• You vehicle details or information, including vehicle registration number, make, model and year, and any modifications there might be on your vehicle.

When you contact us or we contact you or you take part in promotions, competitions, surveys or questionnaires about our Services, we may collect:

• Personal data you provide about yourself anytime you contact us about our Services (for example; your name, username or account number and contact details), including by phone, email or post or when you speak with us through marketplaces (eBay) and social media.
• Details of the emails and other digital communications we send to you that you open, including any links in them that you click on.
• Your feedback and contributions to customer surveys and questionnaires.
• You vehicle details or information, including vehicle registration number, make, model and year, and any modifications there might be on your vehicle.

When you contact us by phone, email, through our Websites, social media or any other method of contact, we may collect:

• Information about your online purchases (for example, what you have bought when and where you bought it and how you paid for it).
• Your personal details, including your postal and billing addresses, email addresses, phone numbers, date of birth and title, company name, company registration and VAT number and references.
• You vehicle details or information about your company’s vehicle fleet, including vehicle registration number, make, model and year, and any modifications there might be on your vehicle.

2. How and why we use personal data

There are a number of reasons why why would need your personal data, mainly we use your personal data to help process orders and advise you on our products and services, as well as the following reasons.

Make our Services available to you

• Manage the accounts you hold with us, including trade accounts or any user accounts on our Websites.
• Process your orders and refunds.
• We need to process your personal data so we can manage your customer accounts, provide you with the goods and services you want to buy and help you with any orders and refunds you may ask for manage and improve our day-to-day operations.

Manage and improve our Websites

• We use cookies and similar technologies on our Websites to improve your customer experience. Some cookies are necessary so you should not disable these if you want to be able to use all the features of our Websites, such as paying in Pound Sterling. You can disable other cookies by this may affect your customer experience. For more information about cookies and how you can disable them, see the cookies and similar technologies section.
• Help to develop and improve our product range, services, stores, information technology systems, know-how and the way we communicate with you.
• We rely on the use of personal date to carry our market research and internal research and development, and to improve our information technology systems (including security) and our product range, services and stores. This allows us to serve you better as a customer
• Detect and prevent fraud or other crime.
• It is important to us to monitor how our Services are used to detect and prevent fraud, other crimes and the misuse of services. This helps s to make sure that you can sagely use our Services.

Personalise your experience

• Use your online browsing behaviour to help us better understand you as a customer and provide you with personalised offers and services.
• Provide you with relevant marketing communications (including by email, post or online advertising), relating to our products and services. As part of this, online advertising may be displayed on our Websites and online media channels. We may also measure the effectiveness of our marketing communications.
• We want to ensure that we provide you with marketing communications, including online advertising, that are relevant to your interests. To achieve this we also measure your responses to marketing communications relating to products and services we offer, which also means we can offer you products and services that better meet your needs as a customer.
• You can change your marketing choices, both when you register with us and at any time after that by emailing: info@towingcentres.com.
• You also have choices when it comes to online advertising. Our cookies policy below set out your choices when it comes to cookies, and how you can control your online behavioural advertising preferences.

Contact and interact with you

• Contact you about our Services, for example by phone, email or post, by responding to social media posts that you have directed at us or by social media or market places messaging services.
• We want to serve you better as a customer so we use personal data to provide clarification or assistance in response to your communications.
• Manage promotions and competitions you take part in, including those we run on social media.
• We need to process your personal data so that we can manage the promotions and competitions you choose to enter.
• Invite you to take part in and manage customer surveys, questionnaires, customer feedback and other market research activities carried out by us or other organisations on our behalf.
• We carry out market research to improve our Services. However, if we contact you about this, you do not have to take part in the activities. If you tell us that you do not want to contact you for market research, we will respect this choice.

3. Sharing personal data with Service Providers

We work with carefully selected Service Providers that carry out certain functions on our behalf. These include for example, companies that help us with technology services, storing and combining data, processing payments, delivery orders and other services such as towbar fitting.

These companies have their own privacy policies which you can visit here:

• Google Analytics

4. How we protect personal data

We use computer safeguards such as firewalls and data encryption, and we enforce physical access controls to our buildings and files to keep this data safe. We only authorise access to employees who need it to carry out their job responsibilities.

• We protect the security of your information while it is being transmitted by encrypting it using Secure Sockets Layer (SSL).
• We enforce physical, electronic and procedural safeguards in connection with the collection, storage and disclosure of personal data. We may occasionally ask for proof of identity before we share your personal data with you – usually in the form of a purchase order or the first line of the billing address.
• We will reveal only the last four digits of your credit card number when confirming an order.
• We have a secure un-recorded system in place when taking card payments over the phone so your card details are not stored anywhere.
• Card details are automatically and immediately encrypted by our card payment system as soon as they are entered.

However, whilst we take appropriate technical and organisational measures to safeguard your personal data, please note that we cannot guarantee the security of any personal data that you transfer over the internet or over the phone to us.

We will only keep your personal data for as long is relevant in order to achieve 100% customer satisfaction; this can be up to 7 years.

5. Marketing and market research

We will send you relevant offers and news about our products and services in a number of ways including by email, but only if you have previously agreed to receive these marketing communications. When you register with us we will ask of you would like to receive marketing communications, and you can change your marketing choices by emailing info@towbarandtrailercentre.com.

We also like to hear your views to help us to improve our Services, so we may contact you for market research purposes or to ask you to review our company’s products and services. You always have the choice about whether to take part in any marketing activities.

Cookies Policy

We use cookies and similar technologies, such as tags and pixels (“Cookies”) to personalise and improve your customer experience as you use our Websites and to provide you with relevant online advertising.

6. How we use Cookies

Cookies are small data files that allow a website to collect and store a range of data on your desktop, laptop or mobile device.

Cookies help us to provide important features and functionality on our Websites and we use them to improve your customer experience. For example, we use Cookies to do the following:

• Improve the way our Websites work
  Cookies allow us to improve the way our Websites work so that we can personalise your experience and allow you to use many of their useful features. For example, we use Cookies so we can remember your preferences and the contents of your shopping basket when you return to our Websites.
• Improve the performance of our Websites
  Cookies can help us to understand how our Websites are being used, for example, by telling us if you get an error message as you browse. These Cookies collect data that is mostly aggregated and anonymous.
• Deliver relevant online advertising
  We use Cookies to help us deliver online advertising that we believe is the most relevant to you on our Websites.
  Cookies used for this purpose are often placed on our Websites by other organisations, and always with our permission. These Cookies may collect information about your online behaviour, such as your IP address, the website you arrived from and information about your purchase history or the content of your shopping basket. This means that you may see our adverts on our Websites and on other organisations’ websites. You may also see adverts for other organisations on our Websites.
  To help us to deliver online advertising that is relevant to you, we may also combine data we collect through Cookies in the browser of your desktop computer or other devices with other data that we have collected.
• Measure the effectiveness of our marketing communications, including online advertising.
  Cookies can tell us if you have seen a specific advert, and how long it has been since you have seen it. This information allows us to measure the effectiveness of our online advertising campaigns and control the number of times you are shown an advert.
  We also use Cookies to measure the effectiveness of our marketing communications, for example by telling us if you have opened a marketing email that we have sent you.

7. Your choices when it comes to Cookies

You can use your browser settings to accept or reject new Cookies and to delete existing Cookies. You can also set up your browser to notify you each time new Cookies are placed on your computer or other device.

If you choose to disable some or all Cookies, you may not be able to make full use of our Websites. For example, you may not be able to add items to your shopping basked, proceed to checkout, or use any of our products and services that require you to sign in.

Where we display personalised adverts on other organisations’ websites, the AdChoices icon will usually be displayed. Clicking on this icon will provide you with specific guidance on how to control your online advertising preferences.

Your rights

Under the EU’s General Data Protection Regulations (2018), you have the right to see the personal data we hold about you among other rights, these are:

8. Right of access

You have the right to request a copy of the information that we hold about you. You can request this information at any time by writing to:

FAO: Marketing Department
Towing Centres UK Ltd
40 Havelock Street
Hessle Road
Hull
HU3 4JH

Or email us at info@towingcentres.com

9. Right of rectification

You have the right to correct data that we hold about you if it is inaccurate or incomplete.

Should our databases hold any inaccurate or incomplete information about you, please contact us at anytime by writing to:

FAO: Marketing Department
Towing Centres UK Ltd
40 Havelock Street
Hessle Road
Hull
HU3 4JH

Or email us at info@towingcentres.com

10. Right to be forgotten

In certain circumstances you can ask for the data we hold about you to be completely removed from our records.

By law we have to hold a VAT invoice for every order for up to 7 years, these cannot be forgotten and are excluded from your rights.

11. Right to restriction of processing

Where certain conditions apply, you have the right to restrict processing.

We will not process or pass on your personal data to any other organisation without permission to do so.

12. Right of portability

You have the right to have your personal data transferred. We will provide you with all the personal data we have about you securely and in an easily transferable format.

13. Right to object

You have the right to object to certain types of processing, such as direct marketing.

We will always give you the option to consent or object to being contacted through marketing channels. This can be amended and accessed at any time by writing to:

FAO: Marketing Department
Towing Centres UK Ltd
40 Havelock Street
Hessle Road
Hull
HU3 4JH

Or email us at info@towingcentres.com

Information you give us:

We receive and store any information you enter on the Website or give us in any other way. You provide this information when you search, participate in discussion forums, or communicate with us by phone, e-mail or otherwise. As a result of those actions you might supply us with such information as your name, address, post code, date of birth, gender, information on how you use our services (such as type, date, time, and information on your browsing activity when visiting the Website) and any other information with respect of your use of the Website or our services. We might also ask for other specific information from time to time.

We use the information that you provide for such purposes as responding to your requests, customising future use of the Website for you, improving the Website and communicating with you.

Automatic information:
We receive and store certain types of information whenever you interact with us. For example, like many websites, we use cookies and in the future we may also use web bugs. This technology allows us to obtain certain types of information when your web browser accesses the Website. Third parties might also do this on the Website. Examples of information we collect and analyse using technology which is not readily apparent include the Internet Protocol (IP) address used to connect your computer to the internet; log in; e-mail address; password; computer and connection information such as browser type and version, operating system and platform; the full Uniform Resource Locators (URL), click stream to, through and from the Website, including date and time; cookie number; pages viewed or searched for; your site history, and phone number used to contact us. A number of companies offer utilities designed to help you visit websites anonymously. We want you to be aware that these tools exist.

What are Cookies and Web bugs?

• Cookies are pieces of information that we transfer to your computer’s hard drive through your web browser when you are viewing the Website. These pieces of information allow the Website to act on information that will make your use of the Website more rewarding. We use cookies to enable our system to recognise your browser and to provide features such as easier login and greater security and for storing information about you between visits.
• The ‘help’ portion of a toolbar on most browsers will tell you how to protect your browser from accepting new cookies, how to have the browser notify you when you receive a new cookie, or how to disable cookies altogether. However if you turn cookies off you won’t have access to some of the features that make the Website more efficient and services may not function properly.
• Web bugs are minute images (commonly 1 pixel x 1 pixel to be exact) that transmit data on use of the internet back to a computer specified by the web bug. Information fed back by web bugs is often similar to the sort of information you will find in a cookie, such as the sites that you have recently visited and potentially the characteristics of the machine that you were using. You can find out more about web bugs by visiting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_beacon

Does Towing Centres UK Ltd share the information received?

Towing Centres UK Ltd collects and uses your personal information to operate and deliver any services you have requested. Towing Centres UK Ltd will not sell, rent or lease user lists to third parties. You consent to use of any personal details you give for internal administrative purposes, for marketing, and for release to third parties either for gain or without charge. Towing Centres UK Ltd will at all times adhere to the data protection principles outlined in the Data Protection Act 1998. Additionally you acknowledge that Towing Centres UK Ltd might sell or buy other assets or that someone else may take over the running of this site. The legal status of Towing Centres UK Ltd or its ownership could also change. In this type of transaction, customer information generally is one of the assets transferred. You acknowledge that your data could be transferred as part of the process and consent to that. Towing Centres UK Ltd does not use or disclose sensitive personal information, such as race, religion or political affiliations, without your explicit consent.

We will also give out personal information as required by law, for example to comply with a Court Order, to enforce our Access Agreement and other terms and conditions or to protect the safety and security of users on the Website.

If you give fax, phone or e-mail details you authorise Towing Centres UK Ltd or our associates to contact you using that method. If you decide that you no longer wish us to communicate with you, or the details we hold on you change, or you decide to register with the Telephone Preference Service or Fax Preference Service in the UK or any equivalent you agree to tell us to enable us to update our records.

How secure is information about me?

• The security of all personal data is of the utmost concern to us. We take technical, contractual, administrative and physical steps to protect all of the user information we hold. Despite this no system is 100% secure and you acknowledge that the information you give us is at risk.
• It is important for you to protect against unauthorised access to your password and to your computer. Be sure to log out when using a shared computer (such as in an internet café or college) and take steps to make sure your personal information has not been stored by that computer or a network connected to it.

What choices do I have?

• The help portion of the toolbar on most browsers will tell you how to prevent your browser from accepting new cookies, how to have the browser notify you when you receive a new cookie or how to disable cookies altogether.
• You can visit sites on the internet that will tell you more about web bugs and what to do about them.
• There are products which allow anonymous browsing.

Conditions of use
This agreement is governed by the laws of England, where Towing Centres UK Ltd originates. You consent to the exclusive jurisdiction of the English courts in all disputes arising out of or relating to the use of the Website. Use of the Website is unauthorised in any jurisdiction that does not give effect to all provisions of these terms and conditions, including without limitation this paragraph.

By continuing to use the Website you agree that you have read the Access Agreement and that you agree with all of its contents. This agreement and the Access Agreement may be altered and for this reason you should regularly visit the Privacy Policy on the Website as the current version will be binding upon you.