ANALYTICAL CONSTRUCTION SERVICES – PRIVACY STATEMENT

ACS is committed to protecting your privacy.  This Privacy Statement explains how ACS use any personal information that we may collect about you when you interact with us.  It also explains how we will store and handle your data and keep it safe.

Our Structure:

ACS is an independent, professional materials testing and consultancy company, employing over 95 managers and technicians, through its main laboratory and offices at Poole, Dorset and satellite laboratories in Bristol and Horsham.

What Information may we collect about you?

The type of personal information we may collect includes:

•    Name
•    Job Title
•    Contact information, including e.mail address
•    Demographic information, such as postcode
•    Website usage data
•    Other information relevant to client enquiries
•    Other information pertaining to special offers and surveys

We collect personal information about you:

•    When you visit our sites;
•    When you contact us with an enquiry or feedback;
•    When you complete any survey that we place on our sites;
•    When you make online orders or bookings for our services;
•    When you create an account with us;
•    When you engage with us on social media;
•    When you contact us to report a problem with our website;
•    When you book an appointment with us;
•    When you comment on or review any of our services;
•    When you permit a third party to share with us the information they hold about you;
•    We collect data from publicly-available sources (such as Companies House) where the information is made public as a matter of law.

How we use this data

Collecting this data helps us understand what you are looking from the company, enabling us to deliver improved products and services.
Specifically, we may use data:

  • For our own internal records.
  • To improve the products and services we provide.
  • To contact you in response to a specific enquiry.
  • To customise the website for you.
  • To send you promotional emails about products, services, offers and other things we think might be relevant to you.
  • To send you promotional mailings or to call you about products, services, offers and other things we think might be relevant to you.
  • To contact you via email, telephone or mail for market research reasons.

In addition, we may collect information about your computer including, where available, your IP address, operating system, browser type, for system administration.  This is statistical data about your browsing actions and patterns and does not identify you as an individual.

How will we use any information we collect about you?

We use personal information to:

•    Manage and improve our sites;
•    Tell you about important changes to our sites;
•    For our own internal records;
•    To improve products and services we provide;
•    To contact you in response to a specific enquiry;
•    To send you promotional e.mails about products, services, offers and other things we think might be relevant to you;
•    To send you promotional mailings or to call you about products, services, offers and other things we think might be relevant to you;
•    To contact you via e.mail, telephone or mail for market research reasons;
•    Monitor the nature of and trends of complaints;
•    Implement changes or actions in response to your feedback;
•    Retain records of how we have dealt with complaints;
•    Respond to any enquiry or feedback we receive from you;
•    Administer any surveys that you complete;
•    Allow you to participate in interactive features of our sites where you choose to do so.

Please note that when you contact us, we may keep a record of any resultant correspondence.

The legal basis upon which we process the personal data is that the above uses are in our legitimate interest.  We will only use the information we collect about you where it is fair and appropriate to do so.

We will only keep your information for the length of time we require it for the purposes we have set out in this statement.  Except for in relation to any service quality feedback, we would not normally retain the information we collect about you for longer than the period that is necessary for the purpose for which it was collected.  At the end of that retention period, your data will either be deleted completely or anonymised (e.g. by aggregating it with other data so that it can be used in a non-identifiable way for business planning)

In certain cases, the law requires us to keep personal data for a specific period, which we will be abide by.

Will we share your personal information with anyone else?

We may share your personal information with any member of the Phenna Group companies.  We may disclose your personal information to third parties:

•    If we have appointed a third party to perform certain functions on our behalf (including administering the promotions we run on this site, providing technical services in relation to this site, where those third parties need to have access to your personal information to properly perform their function);

•    If we become involved in a merger, acquisition or other transaction involving the sale of some or all of ACS’s  or Phenna Group assets, user information (including the personal information collected from you through your use of this site), may be included in the assets which are transferred to the new owner; 

•    Credit reference agencies (CRA’s) for the purpose of assessing your credit score where this is a condition of us entering into a contract with you.  They will also give us information about you, such as about your financial history.  We do this to assess creditworthiness, check your identity, manage your account, trace and recover debts and prevent criminal activity.  We will also continue to exchange information about you with CRA’s on an ongoing basis, including about your settled accounts and any debts not fully repaid on time.  CRA’s will share your information with other organisations; and 

•    If we are under a duty to disclose or share your personal data in order to comply with any legal obligation; or to protect the rights of ACS, our customers, or others.  This includes exchanging information with other organisations for the purposes of fraud protection and credit risk reduction.

We will never share any of your personal information with anybody outside of the Phenna Group of Companies for mailing or marketing purposes unless we have your consent to do so.

How do we store your personal information?

We have put in place measures to ensure the security of the personal information we collect and store about you, and will use all reasonable endeavours to protect your personal information from unauthorised disclosure and/or access.  However, unfortunately the transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure.  Although, we will do our best to protect your personal information we cannot guarantee the security of your information transmitted to our site.  As a consequence, any transmission is at your own risk.

Other Sites:

This site may contain links to and from the sites of third parties.  This Policy only applies to this site.  So, if you follow a link to the site of any third party, please be aware that they have their own Privacy Policies and that we do not accept any responsibility or liability for these policies or how these third parties collect and use your personal information.  We strongly advise that you check these policies before you submit any personal information on these sites.

Accessing your personal information:

You have the right to know whether we hold personal information about you and, if we do, to request a copy of it.  If you would like a copy of some or all of your personal information, please contact acstesting@acstesting.co.uk or write to us at: Unit 14, Black Hill Road West, Holton Heath Trading Park, Poole Dorset, BH16 6LE.

Changes to this Policy:

We keep this Policy under review and will place any updates on this webpage.  This Policy was last updated in November 2023.