A Guide To…

Privacy Policy

This is the privacy notice of AD Communications Limited. We are a specialist communications agency working in a diverse range of B2B technology sectors, including print and graphic arts, packaging, publishing, visual communications, manufacturing, 3D, industrial, construction and interior design.

Being transparent and providing accessible information to individuals about how we will process your personal data is a key element of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). This privacy notice is therefore intended to inform you about what we do with the data you provide us and to show you that we take the protection of your privacy and confidentiality seriously. This notice has been compiled to comply with UK law, including the GDPR, and for the purposes of this notice, to “process” means to use, collect, store, manage or transfer information.

In the document, “we”, “our”, or “us” refers to AD Communications.

AD Communications Ltd is registered in the UK, our company number is 1786184 and our registered office is at 81 High Street, Esher, Surrey, KT10 9QA.

Following the withdrawal of the UK from the European Union, please be aware that, from 1 January 2021, any data received from any EU resident will be held/processed in the UK.

 

WHAT DATA DO WE COLLECT ABOUT YOU AND WHY?

The data we process about you will depend on what our relationship is with you. Below we cover the following groups:

  1. Potential employees/Employees
  2. Potential clients/Clients
  3. Potential suppliers/Suppliers
  4. Journalists/Analysts
  5. Other interested parties who may contact us through our website or direct via phone/email.

Under the GDPR, there are six lawful bases for processing personal data, but as a data controller/processor, we have to stipulate under which basis (or bases) we are processing your data.

If the basis for processing your information becomes no longer relevant, we will stop processing your data and delete it from our systems.

If the basis for processing your information changes, we will notify you of the change and of any new basis under which we can continue to process your information.

1. Potential employees/Employees

We collect personal data about you for recruitment and employment purposes, with the aim of meeting the regulatory and contractual obligations to enable us to carry out our duties as an employer. This includes processing your pay and pension, providing information for statistical purposes, and ensuring that all health and safety standards are complied with.

The personal data we collect may include the following:

  1. Your name
  2. Home address
  3. Telephone number(s)
  4. E-mail address
  5. Bank details
  6. Emergency contact details
  7. Date of birth
  8. National Insurance number
  9. Nationality
  10. Copies of qualifications
  11. References from previous employers
  12. Photo
  13. Health conditions
  14. Records of your correspondence with us
  15. Proof of ID / Proof of right to work in the UK
  16. Any information you choose to share with us (such as information for statistical purposes)
  17. Information you may send to us or enter onto our website (such as speculative CVs or Application Forms)

We may use your personal data for a number of purposes including the following:

  • To process job enquiries and complete our recruitment process
  • To process the details of your contract of employment, pay and pension, and keep a record of employment related matters
  • To fulfil our responsibilities as an employer
  • For our own internal administrative purposes
  • To comply with relevant laws and regulations.

By law, we’re allowed to process your data for one or more of these reasons:

  • You have provided your consent (when a potential employee who has approached us directly)
  • To fulfil our contractual obligations with you (when an employee)
  • To fulfil our legal obligations, where disclosure is required by law, e.g. to the police or a court.

2. Potential clients/Clients

We collect data about you when you are seeking information from us about our services. We also collect data about you when you purchase one or more of our services or agree to our terms and conditions, in which case a contract is formed between us. To carry out our obligations under that contract, we must process the information you give us, some of which may be personal information.

The personal data we collect may include the following:

  1. Your name
  2. Your telephone number(s)
  3. Your e-mail address
  4. Your home address
  5. Any other personal data you voluntarily provide us

We use your personal data for a number of purposes including the following:

  • To supply our services to you
  • To invoice you for our services
  • To seek your feedback about our services
  • To provide you with information about new or alternative services
  • For our own internal administrative purposes
  • To comply with relevant laws and regulations.

By law, we’re allowed to process your data for one or more of these reasons:

  • On the basis that there is a legitimate interest to you or to us in doing so
  • To fulfil our contractual obligations with you (when a client)
  • To fulfil our legal obligations (where disclosure is required by law, e.g. to the police or a court).

3. Potential suppliers/Suppliers

We collect data about you when you are looking to sell us products or services and we may collect data about you when we purchase products or services from you or agree to our terms and conditions, in which case a contract is formed between us. To carry out our obligations under that contract, we must process the information you give us, some of which may be personal information.

The personal data we collect may include the following:

  1. Your name
  2. Your telephone number(s)
  3. Your e-mail address
  4. Your bank details

We use your personal data for a number of purposes including the following:

  • To correspond with you re your products or services
  • To pay your invoices
  • For our own internal administrative purposes
  • To comply with relevant laws and regulations.

By law, we’re allowed to process your data for one or more of these reasons:

  • On the basis that there is a legitimate interest to you or to us in doing so
  • To fulfil our contractual obligations with you (when a supplier)
  • To fulfil our legal obligations (where disclosure is required by law, e.g. to the police or a court).

4. Journalists/Analysts

We collect personal data about you for the purposes of providing you with information about our clients’ products, services and events to facilitate your role as a professional journalist or analyst.

The personal data we collect may include the following:

  1. Your name
  2. Your home address
  3. Your telephone number(s)
  4. Your e-mail address
  5. Your nationality
  6. Your photo
  7. Any biographical information you choose to share with us or which is publicly available.

We use your personal data for a number of purposes including the following:

  • To send you press releases or other relevant information on behalf of our clients
  • To send you invitations to events on behalf of our clients
  • To liaise with you about arrangements for any client event to which you have been invited
  • To inform clients of your biographical details in advance of meetings and events

By law, we’re allowed to process your data for one or more of these reasons:

  • On the basis that there is a legitimate interest to you, our clients or to us in doing so
  • To fulfil our legal obligations, where disclosure is required by law, e.g. to the police or a court.

5. Other interested parties who may contact us through our website or direct via phone/email

So that we can respond to your request, we collect data about you when you browse our website or contact us to provide you with information or our opinions. In such cases, where there is no existing relationship between us, we aim to obtain your explicit consent to process the information you provide by, for example, asking you to agree to our use of cookies or when you send us a message by e-mail from the “Get in Touch” and “Careers” forms on our website, to which you would reasonably expect us to reply.

The personal data we collect may include the following:

  1. Your name
  2. Your home address
  3. Your telephone number(s)
  4. Your e-mail address
  5. Any information relevant to your request that you choose to share with us.

We use your personal data for the following purposes:

  • Where you browse our website, to collect information about how you use our website, so that we can improve your experience
  • Where you use the contact forms on our website, to respond to your request
  • Where you contact us by phone or email, to respond to your request

By law, we’re allowed to process your data for the following reasons:

  • That you have provided your consent to us doing so
  • To fulfil our legal obligations, where disclosure is required by law, e.g. to the police or a court.

HOW DO WE COLLECT DATA ABOUT YOU?

We may collect the information about you through personal meetings with you, through client and staff surveys we carry out, through phone calls, emails or other forms of communication.

We will also collect information about you (though only the data you submit) when you send a request to us via one of the forms on our website, www.adcomms.co.uk .

When you browse our website, we may also collect information about your computer, including your IP address, browser type (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, etc.) and the type of computer or mobile device. We use this information in aggregate to assess the popularity of pages on our website, not to identify an individual. We gather this information through the use of cookies and Google Analytics.

For further information about what data Google Analytics captures and how it processes that data, go to: https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/6004245?hl=en

If you do not wish your use of websites to be tracked by Google Analytics, visit: https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout

Cookies

A cookie is a small piece of data, which with your permission (you will be asked to click on a button to accept cookies), is placed on your computer by your web browser when you visit a website. Cookies enable websites to remember information, such as which pages you’ve visited, to provide you with a faster, more personalised experience and to provide the website owner with a data about your use of the website with a view to improving it.

We use traffic log cookies to identify which pages are being used. This helps us analyse data about webpage traffic and improve our website in order to tailor it to customer needs. We only use this information for statistical analysis purposes and then the data is removed from the system.

Overall, cookies help us provide you with a better website by enabling us to monitor which pages you find useful and which you do not. A cookie in no way gives us access to your computer or any information about you, other than the data you choose to share with us.

Your web browser should allow you to delete any you choose. It also should allow you to prevent or limit their use. For information, see https://cookies.insites.com/disable-cookies/

If you choose to prevent the use of cookies through your browser settings, you may not be able to use all the functionality of our website.

Links to other websites

Our website may contain links to other websites of interest. However, once you have used these links to leave our site, we do not have any control over other websites, so cannot be responsible for the protection and privacy of any information which you provide while visiting such sites. No website other than www.adcomms.co.uk is governed by this privacy statement, so you should look at the privacy statement applicable to the website in question.

WHERE DO WE KEEP THE DATA WE COLLECT?

The personal information you provide us is stored on secure servers in the EU and our IT systems have been certified under the Cyber Essentials scheme.

Our website is hosted by Heart Internet, whose secure servers are also located in the EU – see their privacy notice at https://www.heartinternet.uk/terms/heart-internet-privacy-statement

We use Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificates to verify our identity to your browser and to encrypt any data you give us.

Whenever information is transferred between us, you can check that it is done so using SSL by looking for a closed padlock symbol or other trust mark in your browser’s URL bar or toolbar.

WHO DO WE SHARE YOUR DATA WITH?

We will never share, sell, swap or rent your data to anyone for marketing purposes.

Journalists/ Analysts – We may share your data with our clients as part of our media relations services and to help them provide you with the appropriate subject matter and technical information.

Employees – We may share your data (though not more than necessary for the specific task) with a profiling company as part of our recruitment process and with a training company as part of your personal development with AD Communications. We also share your data with a pensions company with regards to our company pension scheme.

Clients – With your permission we may share your data with partner companies of AD Communications that provide specific services that we do not currently provide.

HOW LONG DO WE RETAIN YOUR DATA?

Potential employees – If you send us information in connection with a job application, we may keep it for up to three years in case we decide to contact you at a later date.

Employees – We collect information about you and your work from time to time throughout the period of your employment. This information will be used only for purposes directly relevant to your employment. After your employment has ended, we will keep your data for six years before destroying or deleting it.

Potential clients – We will continue to process your information on the basis of legitimate interest until you either become a client (when we will process your information under our contractual obligations) or you object to us doing so.

Clients – We will continue to process your information for the length of any contractual relationship we have with you and after that for any period required to comply with legal and regulatory requirements.

Journalists/Analysts – We will continue to process your information until there is no legitimate interest for doing so or you object to us doing so further.

Other interested parties who contact us – We will continue to process your information on this basis until you withdraw your consent or it can be reasonably assumed that your consent no longer exists.

You may withdraw your consent at any time by sending an email to datarequest@adcomms.co.uk .

Except as otherwise stated above, we will not keep your personal information for any purpose for longer than is necessary and will only retain the personal information that is necessary:

  • To provide you with the services you have requested;
  • To prevent fraud and for legal compliance, including for the period demanded by HMRC
  • To support a claim or defence in court.

HOW CAN YOU ACCESS THE INFORMATION WE HOLD ABOUT YOU?

At any time you can request a copy of the personal information we have about you by sending us a request at datarequest@adcomms.co.uk

On receipt of your request, we have 30 days to respond to you.

While the onus is on us to ensure that the personal information we hold about you is kept up-to-date, you may ask us either to amend any of the personal information we send you or to delete any or all of it. This may, of course, limit or end the service we can provide to you.

When we receive any request to access, amend or delete personal information, we will first take reasonable steps to verify your identity before granting you access or otherwise taking any action. This is important to safeguard your information.

HOW CAN YOU MAKE A COMPLAINT?

If you’re not happy with our privacy notice or have any complaint, please let us know by sending the details of your complaint to datarequest@adcomms.co.uk

If you’re dissatisfied about how we process your personal information, you have a right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office. This can be done at https://ico.org.uk/concerns

UPDATING OUR PRIVACY NOTICE

We will regularly review this privacy notice and update as necessary. The terms that apply to you are those posted here on our website on the day you use our website. We advise you to print a copy for your records.

CONTACTING US

If you have any questions regarding our privacy policy, please contact us via email at datarequest@adcomms.co.uk or write to us at:

AD Communications
81 High Street
Esher,
Surrey
KT10 9QA