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Privacy Policy

Scope & Purpose

The purpose of this policy is to set how we use personal information we may obtain about you through this website (www.ercol.com), through the post, by phone, through ercol stockists and visiting our showroom at our registered office address stated below.  If you place an order with ercol you will be issued with a separate privacy notice.

ercol takes its responsibilities regarding the security of personal information very seriously and is committed to protecting your safety and privacy. We will only use information that we collect about you lawfully in accordance with the UK’s retained version of the General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018, and in respect of data of EU citizens, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). 

This privacy policy explains what personal data we collect about you, how and why we use it, who we disclose it to, and how we protect your privacy.

Responsibilities

Any references in this policy to “ercol”, “we”, “our” or “us” mean Ercol Furniture Limited, a company registered in England and Wales with registration number 000163292 and registered office address of Summerleys Road, Princes Risborough, Buckinghamshire, HP27 9PX.  We control the ways your personal data are collected and the purposes for which your personal data are used by ercol and we are the data controller as defined under the GDPR/UK GDPR.

Type of data collected

When using the term “personal data” in our Privacy Policy, we mean information that relates to you and allows us to identify you, either directly or in combination with other information that we may hold.
We may collect, process and store the following categories of information about you:

  • Name (Title, Forename and Surname)
  • Billing, postal and/or delivery address
  • E mail address
  • Telephone number
  • Age/Date of birth
  • Credit Card or Bank Details
  • Transaction and service history
  • Product registration details – products purchased and where purchased
  • Feedback on products, details of complaints and notes from conversations with you over the phone, online or in store
  • Fabric swatches and wood samples requested
  • Details related to any vouchers or offer codes use on our products
  • Catalogue(s) requested
  • Occasionally body weights and heights if submitted directly by you to ensure a product is suitable for your stature
  • Feedback on where you have heard about us
  • IP address
  • Details of your use of our site such as traffic data, date, time and duration that you used our site, weblogs and statistical information such as links clicked and products searched
  • Questions, comments and feedback along with your username will be logged if you interact with us via social media channels
  • Information gathered by the use of cookies in your web browser. To learn more about how we use cookies, please see our Cookies Policy
  • Your marketing preferences if consenting
  • CCTV Video and Images – applicable only to our showroom visitors
  • For your security, we’ll also keep an encrypted record of your login password

Special Categories of Data

We will not ordinarily collect data that are classified as Special Categories of Data under the GDPR/UK GDPR.  Such data is personal data revealing racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, or trade union membership, and the processing of genetic data, biometric data for the purpose of uniquely identifying an individual, data concerning health or data concerning an individual’s sex life or sexual orientation.

We will never collect information meeting this criteria without your explicit informed consent.

If you fail to provide personal data

Where we need to collect personal data by law, or under the terms of a contract we have with you, and you fail to provide that data when requested, we may not be able to perform the contract we have or are trying to enter into with you (for example, to provide you with goods). In this case, we may have to cancel an order you have with ercol, but we will notify you if this is the case at the time. 

How and why we collect the data

The means by which we collect personal information on the website are account creation, voucher and product purchasing, product registration, feedback or enquires on our website or social media pages, swatch requests, catalogue requests and cookies.

We process and use your data for a variety of different reasons when we believe we have a legitimate or vital interest to do so, as well as to satisfy any legal obligations. We will process this for the purposes of targeting marketing campaigns for which you have consented, and through the course of a sale and order completion for our products and services. We will only obtain your personal information directly from you, via the use of our website or store or through ercol stockists, and will never sell your data to third parties. 

We may disclose your information to our third-party service providers, agents and subcontractors (suppliers) for the purposes of providing services to us or directly to you on our behalf, including the operation and maintenance of our site, delivery services and social media pages.

We do not transfer your personal data outside the UK. Where we collect your personal data from outside the UK (for example, from the Republic of Ireland) and transfer this to the UK for storage and use, we provide appropriate safeguards by ensuring such transfers are governed by the requirements of the EU Commission’s standard contractual clauses. 

When we use suppliers, we only disclose to them any personal information that is necessary for them to deliver their services.

The personal data we collect will be used for the following purposes:

  • To pursue a legitimate interest - order fulfilment, customer service and improvement – We use your data internally and pass to carefully selected third parties so that we may conduct pre-contract setups, enter into a contract, fulfil your order, provide you with information, resolve customer service issues and make product improvements.  Examples of such third parties are delivery businesses, suppliers that deal with order/product issues, and credit card details with PCI DSS compliant companies in order to take payment on orders. We will also track website usage to build up a picture of how it is used and by whom, to aid in future development and bring our customers the best user experience, products and services. 
  • Support for products registered/purchased - We use your information to support you in your use of products that you have registered with us. This includes the use of personal information to discuss and resolve product problems, give advice on product care and provide other support related services. 
  • Marketing and improving our products and services – Where you have consented, we use your information for assessment and analysis (e.g. market, customer and product analysis) to enable us to review, develop and improve the services we offer and to enable us to provide you and other customers with relevant information through our marketing programme. We may use your information to make decisions about you using computerised technology, for example, automatically selecting products or services that we think will interest you from the information we have. This processing is necessary for us to respond to changing market conditions and the needs of our customers. We may inform you (by email, post or otherwise) about products and services that we consider may be of interest to you. 
  • Pass your details to carefully selected third parties, including ercol stockists – In addition to the points noted above we occasionally make names and addresses available to businesses whose products we think may interest you if you have given us consent to do so.  We may also need to pass transactional and contractual information to our professional and legal advisers for example auditors and tax advisors or web development technical support team. 
  • To comply with our legal obligations – for example; for the prevention and detection of fraud, to notify you of changes to our terms and conditions and privacy policy, or to comply with a request from you in relation to the exercising of your rights (where you have asked us not to contact you with marketing information, we will keep a record of your details in order to prevent this from occurring). To enforce or protect our contractual or other legal rights, or to bring or defend legal proceedings
  • Where processing is in your vital interest - such as product recalls.

We may give information about you to the following, who may use it for the same purposes as set out above:

  • To employees and agents of ercol to administer any accounts, products and services provided to you by ercol now or in the future.
  • Appointed agents who profile your data so that we can tailor the goods/services we offer to your specific needs.

We may also disclose your information:

  • To anyone to whom we transfer or may transfer our rights and duties under our agreement with you
  • To our third-party service providers, agents and subcontractors (suppliers) for the purposes of providing services to us or directly to you on our behalf, including the operation and maintenance of our site, delivery services and social media pages.
  • If we have a duty to do so or if the law allows us to do so.

Trustpilot may contact you via email to invite you to review any services and/or products you received from us, in order to collect your feedback and improve our services (and products) - (the “Purpose”). We use an external company, Trustpilot A/S (“Trustpilot”), to collect your feedback which means that we will share your name, email address and reference number with Trustpilot for the Purpose. If you want to read more about how Trustpilot process your data, you can find their Privacy Policy here. We may also use such reviews in other promotional material and media for our advertising and promotional purposes.

Lawful basis for data processing

We only collect and process your personal data when there is a lawful basis to do so. The lawful basis we rely on in this respect includes:

  • Consent – where you gave us explicit consent. For example ticking “Yes Please” to being sent information on products and promotions and to having your details passed to carefully selected third parties to make you aware of other products and services. 
  • Legitimate interest: a legitimate commercial interest to process certain aspects of your personal data, e.g. for running our business.
  • Legal obligation – processing necessary in order to satisfy our legal obligations for example passing on details to law enforcement in the event of fraud or other criminal activity affecting ercol.
  • Contractual fulfilment – processing of your data in order to meet our contractual obligations with you for example passing your delivery details to a third party delivery company to fulfil your order.

Your Rights - Access to and Update of your data, withdrawal of consent and complaints

Your rights:

At any point while we are in possession of or processing your personal data, you, the data subject, have the following rights:

  • Right of access – you have the right to request a copy of the information that we hold about you.
  • Right of rectification – you have a right to correct data that we hold about you that is inaccurate or incomplete.
  • Right to be forgotten – in certain circumstances you can ask for the data we hold about you to be erased from our records.
  • Right to restriction of processing – where certain conditions apply to have a right to restrict the processing.
  • Right of portability – you have the right to have the data we hold about you transferred to another organisation.
  • Right to object – you have the right to object to certain types of processing such as direct marketing.
  • Right to object to automated processing, including profiling – you also have the right to be subject to the legal effects of automated processing or profiling.
  • Right to judicial review: in the event that ercol refuses your request under rights of access, we will provide you with a reason as to why. You have the right to complain as outlined below.

Access and update of your data

In order to request a copy of the personal data that ercol holds about you, please e mail data.protection@ercol.com with the subject title “Data Subject Access Request,” including all of the following information:

  • Your full name;
  • Your address;
  • Clear description of the data you are requesting;
  • Proof of address (Bank statement, Credit Card Bill, Utility Bill, Driving Licence)


This is a security measure to ensure that personal data is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it. We may also contact you to ask you for further information in relation to your request to speed up our response.

To update the information we hold on you by e mailing data.protection@ercol.com with the subject title “Update of Personal Details” and confirming what details required updating.
 

Withdrawal of Consent

Whenever you have given us your consent to use your personal data, you have the right to change your mind at any time and withdraw that consent.  In order to withdraw consent, for example for the purposes of marketing, please e mail data.protection@ercol.com with the subject title “Unsubscribe” and in the body of the mail confirm your details so that we can identify you.
 

Complaints

In the event that you wish to make a complaint about how your personal data is being processed by ercol or how your complaint has been handled, you have the right to lodge a complaint directly with the Information Commissioner’s Office.  

The ICO’s address:            
Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF

Helpline number: 0303 123 1113

ICO website: https://www.ico.org.uk

If you wish to lodge a complaint direct to ercol please email data.protection@ercol.com or write a letter addressed to Data Protection, Ercol Furniture Limited, Summerleys Road, Princes Risborough, Buckinghamshire, HP27 9PX.


We will regularly review this Privacy Policy, updating it when necessary to reflect changes in the law or otherwise. Future changes will be posted on this page and you will be notified of any significant amendments by e-mail. The Privacy Policy was last updated in March 2022.