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Privacy Policy

Nichols Plc respects your privacy and is committed to protecting your personal data. In this privacy policy we explain how we collect and use your personal information when you visit the www.nichols.plc.uk website.

“We” are Nichols Plc (company number 00238303) and our registered office is at Laurel House, Woodlands Park, Ashton Road, Newton Le Willows, WA12 0HH. We are the data controller for the purposes of the Data Protection Act 2018, the UK GDPR and any other data protection legislation applicable in the UK from time to time.

If you have any questions about your privacy on our website, or our use of your personal data, please contact us.

Please note that links from our website may take you to external websites which are not covered by this policy. We recommend that you check their privacy policies before submitting any personal information to such sites. We will not be responsible for the content, function or information collection policies of these external websites.

What information do we collect about you and how do we collect it?

You are not required (by law or by any contract with us) to provide personal information to us via our website. We will only require you to provide personal information to us where it is necessary for us to provide you with a service at your request, such as when you use our contact form to get in touch with us.

Information you provide to us

We may receive personal information about you whenever you contact us through our website or by phone, text, email or post, including enquiring about career opportunities.

This information may include:

  • Information about your identity, such as your full name, title and date of birth
  • Contact information, such as your postal address, email address and telephone number
  • The contents of any communications that you send to us
  • In respect of career enquiries, your CV including details of your education and employment history (and any other information which you may choose to provide to us with your CV)

Information we collect about you on our website

We collect information using cookies and other similar technologies to help distinguish you from other users of our website. These can streamline your online experience by saving you from re-inputting some information and also allow us to make improvements to our website. For more information about how and why we use cookies, please take a look through our Cookie Policy.

When you visit our website we may collect the following information:

  • Details of your visits to our website and the resources that you access, such as which pages you view and which links you follow
  • Your IP address and general location
  • Details of the hardware and software that you are using to access the website
  • A device identifier (cookie or IP address) for fraud prevention

Information we collect about you from other sources

We may collect information about you from other sources. This may include the following:

  • Publicly available information, from sources such as Companies House and the Electoral Roll
  • Information you have shared publicly, including on social media (particularly in respect of job applications)
  • Information from third party databases, such as credit reference agencies

This list is not exhaustive and, in specific instances, we may need to collect additional data for the purposes set out in this policy.

How and why do we use your personal information?

We take data protection law seriously, so below we have set out exactly how and why we use your information, and what our legal basis is to be able to use your information in each way.

Operating and improving our website

We always want to offer the best experience that we can on our website. Sometimes this means we may use your information to find ways that we can improve what we do, or how we do it.

In this context, we will rely on the lawful basis of legitimate interests and will only use your information where it is necessary so that we can:

  • Monitor and improve the performance of our website
  • Review and improve our systems, processes and staff (including training)
  • Ensure that content on our website is presented in the most effective manner for you and for your computer
  • Administer our website, including troubleshooting problems, analysing statistics, conducting research and tests and keeping the website secure
  • Measure and understand the effectiveness of advertising we serve to you and others, and to deliver relevant advertising to you

We may use aggregated data about the usage of our website for analytics purposes, using third party services such as Google Analytics. Aggregated data used for analytics and statistical purposes is anonymised so that it does not contain any information that could identify you.

Communicating with you

It is necessary for us to use personal information about you when you contact us, or when we contact you. We have a legitimate interest in communicating effectively with our customers and website users and we may use your information in this context to:

  • Respond to any enquiries that you make to us, including via our website and social media
  • Provide you with information about our products and services
  • Verify your identity
  • Deal with any complaints you may have
  • Contact you about any changes that we make to our products or services
  • Contact you about important changes to our business, policies or terms

If you enquire about career opportunities, it is necessary for us to use your personal information as part of the recruitment process, in order to assess your suitability for a particular role. If you apply for a role with us, we will provide you with further information about how we use your data during the recruitment process.

Telling you about other products or services that we think may be of interest to you

We may use your information to identify and tell you about our products or services that we think may be of interest to you. We will only do this where you have informed us that you would like to receive marketing communications and you may update your preferences at any time by contacting us.

We may also use your information to invite you to participate in market research. If we do contact you about market research, you do not have to participate. If you tell us that you do not want to receive market research communications, we will respect this.

Verifying your identity and protecting you and others from harm

We may use your information where it is necessary for us to do so in order to meet our legal obligations or to detect and prevent fraud, money-laundering and other crimes.

We may also use your information where it is necessary to protect your interests, or the interests of others, in accordance with our legal obligations and the pursuit of legitimate interests. This may include in the event of criminality such as identity theft, piracy or fraud.

Change of purpose

We will only use your personal information for the purposes for which we collected it, unless we reasonably consider that we need to use it for another reason and that reason is compatible with the original purpose. If we need to use your personal information for an unrelated purpose we will notify you and we will explain the legal basis which allows us to do so.

Please note that we may process your personal information without your knowledge or consent, in compliance with the above rules, where this is required or permitted by law.

Who do we share your personal information with?

Sharing your information within our company and group

We share the information that you provide to us with our staff so that we can effectively manage our website and handle customer enquiries and complaints.

We may share the information that you provide to us with other companies within our group and other websites that we and our group companies operate.

Sharing your information with third parties

We may share your data with selected third parties. For example, we may share your information with:

  • Web hosting providers to manage and host the website and related infrastructure, services and applications
  • Contact management systems to send emails, instant messages, social media messages and SMS messages

There are certain exceptional circumstances in which we may disclose your information to third parties. This would be where we believe that the disclosure is:

  • Required by the law, or in order to comply with judicial proceedings, court orders or legal or regulatory proceedings
  • Necessary to protect the safety of our employees, our property or the public
  • Necessary for the prevention or detection of crime, including exchanging information with other companies or organisations for the purposes of fraud protection and credit risk reduction
  • Proportionate as part of a merger, business or asset sale, in the event that this happens we will share your information with the prospective seller or buyer involved

How long do we keep your personal information?

We will only store your personal information for as long as we need it for the purposes for which it was collected. Information that we collect about you via our website may be held for up to 3 years, and we will keep records of any correspondence with you for up to 6 years since our last contact with you.

How do we protect your personal information?

We will take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure that your data is treated securely and in accordance with this policy.

We try to ensure that all information you provide to us is transferred securely via the website. Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure. You should always check for “https” in the URL and the padlock symbol in your browser to indicate that your connection to our website is secure. Although we will do our best to protect your personal data, we cannot guarantee the security of your data transmitted to our website; any transmission is at your own risk. Once we have received your information, we will use strict procedures and security features to try to prevent unauthorised access.

All information you provide to us is stored on third party secure servers (WPEngine) in the UK.

What rights do you have in respect of your personal information?

If you require any further information about your rights as explained below, or if you would like to exercise any of your rights, please contact us.

You have the right to be informed

We have a legal obligation to provide you with concise, transparent, intelligible and easily accessible information about your personal information and our use of it. This is the purpose of this policy, but please contact us if you require any further information.

You have the right to access your personal data

You have the right to ask us to confirm whether or not we hold any of your personal information. If we do, you have the right to have a copy of your information and to be informed of the following:

  • Why we have been using your information
  • What categories of information we were using
  • Who we have shared the information with
  • How long we envisage holding your information

In order to maintain the security of your information, we will have to verify your identity before we provide you with a copy of the information we hold.

You have the right to correct any inaccurate or incomplete personal data

Where you have requested a copy of the information we hold about you, you may notice that there are inaccuracies in the records, or that certain parts are incomplete. If this is the case you can contact us so that we can correct our records.

You have the right to be forgotten

There may be times where it is no longer necessary for us to hold personal information about you. This could be if:

  • The information is no longer needed for the original purpose that we collected it for
  • You withdraw your consent for us to use the information (and we have no other legal reason to keep using it)
  • You object to us using your information and we have no overriding reason to keep using it
  • We have used your information unlawfully
  • We are subject to a legal requirement to delete your information

In those situations you have the right to have your personal data deleted. If you believe one of these situations applies to you, please contact us.

You have the right to have your data transferred to you or a third party in a common format

Also known as data portability, you have the right to obtain a copy of your personal data for your own purposes. This right allows you to move, copy or transfer your personal data more easily from one IT system to another, in a safe and secure way.

You have the right to object to direct marketing

You can tell us at any time that you would prefer that we do not use your information for direct marketing purposes. If you would not like to receive any direct marketing from us, please contact us or follow the instructions provided in any of our marketing communications.

You have the right to object to us using your information for our own legitimate interests

Sometimes, we use your personal information to achieve goals that are important to our business. These are our legitimate interests, as explained above in this policy.

We aim to always ensure that your rights and information are properly protected. If you believe that the way we are using your data is not justified due to its impact on you or your rights, you have the right to object. Unless we have a compelling reason to continue, we will stop using your personal data for these purposes.

You have the right to restrict how we use your personal data

You have the right to ask us to stop using your personal data in any way other than simply keeping a copy of it. This right is available where:

  • You have informed us that the information we hold about you is inaccurate, and we have not yet been able to verify this
  • You have objected to us using your information for our own legitimate interests and we are in the process of considering your objection
  • We have used your information in an unlawful way, but you do not want us to delete your data
  • We no longer need to use the information, but you need it for a legal claim

You have rights related to automated-decision making and profiling

We will not use automated decision-making or profiling to make any decisions which will have a legal effect upon you or otherwise significantly affect you, and you have the right not to be subject to such decisions.

Changes to our Privacy Policy

Any changes we make to our privacy policy in the future will be posted on this page (www.nichols.plc.uk/privacy-policy) and, where appropriate, notified to you by email. Please check back frequently to see any updates or changes to our privacy policy.

This version was last updated on 3 February 2021 and historic versions can be obtained by contacting us.

Complaints

If you wish to make a complaint about our collection or use of your personal data, please contact us in the first instance so that we may seek to resolve your complaint.

You have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the statutory body which oversees data protection law in the UK. Please visit the ICO website if you wish to lodge a complaint with the ICO.

Contact Us

Our contact details are as follows.

Post: Laurel House, Woodlands Park, Ashton Road, Newton Le Willows, WA12 0HH

Website: www.nichols.plc.uk/contact/