ABOUT THIS PRIVACY POLICY

ASC Associates understands that your privacy is important to you and that you care about how your personal data is used and shared online. We respect and value the privacy of everyone who visits this website, https://www.ascassociates.co.uk (“Our Site”) and will only collect and use personal data in ways that are described here, and in a manner that is consistent with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Please read this Privacy Policy carefully and ensure that you understand it. Your acceptance of Our Privacy Policy is deemed to occur upon your first use of Our Site. If you do not accept and agree with this Privacy Policy, you must stop using Our Site immediately.

1. DEFINITIONS AND INTERPRETATION

In this Policy, the following terms shall have the following meanings:

“Cookie” means a small text file placed on your computer or device by Our Site when you visit certain parts of Our Site and/or when you use certain features of Our Site. Details of the Cookies used by Our Site are set out below;
“Cookie Law” means the relevant parts of the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003;
“personal data” means any and all data that relates to an identifiable person who can be directly or indirectly identified from that data. In this case, it means personal data that you give to Us via Our Site. This definition shall, where applicable, incorporate the definitions provided in the EU Regulation 2016/679 – the General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”); and
“We/Us/Our” means ASC Associates

2. Who we are

Our Site is owned and operated by ASC Associates, a Limited Company registered in England under company number 9885749.

Registered address: 8 Station Road, Histon, Cambs, CB24 9LQ

Data Protection Officer: Henry Moran.

Email address: henrymoran@ascassociates.co.uk.

Our website address is: https://www.ascassociates.co.uk.

3. LIMITATION OF THIS PRIVACY POLICY

This Privacy Policy applies only to your use of Our Site. Our Site contains links to other websites. Please note that We have no control over how your data is collected, stored, or used by other websites and We advise you to check the privacy policies of any such websites before providing any data to them.

4. WHAT IS PERSONAL DATA?

Personal data is defined by the General Data Protection Regulation (EU Regulation 2016/679) (the “GDPR”) as ‘any information relating to an identifiable person who can be directly or indirectly identified in particular by reference to an identifier’.

Personal data is, in simpler terms, any information about you that enables you to be identified. Personal data covers obvious information such as your name and contact details, but it also covers less obvious information such as identification numbers, electronic location data, and other online identifiers (e.g. your IP Address).

5. WHAT RIGHTS YOU HAVE OVER YOUR DATA

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

  • The right to be informed about Our collection and use of your personal data. This Privacy Policy should tell you everything you need to know, but you can always contact Us to find out more or to ask any questions using the details in Section 2 of this Privacy Policy.
  • The right to access the personal data We hold about you. Section 6 will tell you how to do this.
  • The right to have your personal data rectified if any of your personal data held by Us is inaccurate or incomplete. Please contact Us using the details in Section 2 to find out more.
  • 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. Please contact Us using the details in Section 2 to find out more.
  • The right to restrict (i.e. prevent) the processing of your personal data.
  • The right to object to me using your personal data for a particular purpose or purposes.
  • The right to data portability. This means that, if you have provided personal data to Us directly, We are using 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.
  • Rights relating to automated decision-making and profiling. We do not use your personal data in this way.

For more information about Our use of your personal data or exercising your rights as outlined above, please read this Privacy Policy in full, or contact Us using the details provided in Section 2.

Further information about your rights can also be obtained from the Information Commissioner’s Office 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 lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office.

6. how you can access the data we hold about you

Under the GDPR, you can request to receive an exported file of the personal data We hold about you, including any data you have provided to Us. You can also request that We erase any personal data We hold about you. This is known as a “subject access request”.

All subject access requests should be made in writing and sent to the email or postal addresses shown at the end of this privacy policy. There is not normally any charge for a subject access request. However, if your request is ‘manifestly unfounded or excessive’ (for example, if you make repetitive requests) a fee may be charged to cover Our administrative costs in responding.

Your request to erase personal data We hold about you does not include any data We are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.

7. What personal data we collect and why we collect it

Depending upon your use of Our Site, We may collect some or all of the following personal data:

  • Name;
  • Email address;
  • IP address;
  • Web browser type and version;
  • Operating system;
  • A list of URLs starting with a referring site, your activity on Our Site, and the site you exit to.

The personal data We collect is listed in more detail in the sections below:

Comments

When visitors leave comments on the site We collect the data shown in the comments form, and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection.

An anonymised string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here. After approval of your comment, your profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment.

Comments, along with the visitor’s name, are displayed publicly on the blog. We may respond to some comments via the email address given.

Contact forms

As with comments, when visitors use the contact form on the site We collect the data shown in the contact form (name, email address, and website URL), as well as information on how you found Us. The contact form is created using the WPForms Lite plugin, which does not use Cookies and includes a checkbox to confirm consent before submitting data to Our Site.

The actual submission data is stored in the database of Our Site and is emailed directly to Amanda Shortman. This email will include the submitter’s IP address, timestamp, name, email address, website, and message.

Cookies

If you leave a comment on our site you may opt-in to saving your name, email address and website in Cookies. These are for your convenience so that you do not have to fill in your details again when you leave another comment. These Cookies will last for one year.

Our Site also uses the following plugins and third-party systems:

  • Akismet (an anti-spam plugin provided by Automattic) for the purpose of automatically capturing spam comments.
  • Jetpack (also provided by Automattic) for the purpose of user experience and gathering website analytics. You can find out more in Jetpack’s Cookie Policy
  • Google Analytics (provided by Google) for the purpose of monitoring user demographics. You can find out more about Google Analytics Cookie Usage on Websites here

If you do not wish for Our Site to place Cookies on your device, you can disable Cookies within your browser. I have provided links to tutorials for disabling Cookies on the major browsers below:

Embedded content from other websites

Articles on Our Site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website.

These websites may collect data about you, use Cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracing your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.

8. how we use your personal data

Under the 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 the following purposes:

  • Communicating with you. This may include responding to comments from you.
  • Supplying you with information by email that you have opted-in to (e.g our newsletter, which you can unsubscribe from at any time by clicking the unsubscribe link at the bottom of every email, or by contacting Us directly.).
  • Analysing your use of Our Site and gathering feedback, to enable Us to continually improve Our Site and your user experience.

9. HOW AND WHERE we STORE OR TRANSFER YOUR PERSONAL DATA

Your personal data is stored upon My Site’s database. If you leave a comment or fill in the contact form, it will be sent to Our Email Account. Visitor demographics will be shared with the Jetpack and Askimet plugins (owned by Automattic) and Google Analytics.

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.

10. how long we retain your data.

If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This is so We can recognise and approve any follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue.

If you use the contact form, your message and contact details will be kept for as long as is deemed necessary. We will not keep your personal data for any longer than is necessary in light of the reason(s) for which it was first collected. The following factors will be used to determine how long it is kept:

  • the potential for ongoing or future work with you

business needs that require documentation to be retained

11. How we protect your data

Data collected and stored for the purpose of analytics will be stored for the lifetime of this website.We are committed to the protection of Personal Information submitted to us. In order to prevent unauthorised access or disclosure, we have put in place suitable physical, electronic and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure the information we collect online.

12. What data breach procedures we have in place

We have also put in place procedures to deal with any suspected personal data breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a breach where we are legally required to do so.

13. Additional information

We may change this Privacy Notice from time to time. This may be necessary, for example, if the law changes, or if We change Our business in a way that affects personal data protection.

Any changes will be immediately posted on Our Site and you will be deemed to have accepted the terms of the Privacy Policy on your first use of Our Site following the alterations. We recommend that you check this page regularly to keep up-to-date.