Privacy Policy

Who we are

Universal Smart Cards Limited is a company registered in England and Wales whose registered address is Unit 9 Devonshire Business Park, 4 Chester Road, Borehamwood, Hertfordshire, WD6 1NA.

This privacy policy sets out how Universal Smart Cards uses and protects any information that you give Universal Smart Cards when you engage with us or through your use this website. It makes you aware of how and why personal information will be used, namely for the purposes of the performance of our contract with our customers and how long it will usually be retained for. It provides you with certain information that must be provided under the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR).

Universal Smart Cards is committed to ensuring that your privacy is protected. Should we ask you to provide certain information by which you can be identified when using this website, then you can be assured that it will only be used in accordance with this privacy policy. It is important that you read this policy, together with any other privacy notice or privacy policy we may provide on specific occasions when we are collecting or processing personal information about you, so that you are aware of how and why we are using such information.

Universal Smart Cards may change this policy from time to time by updating this page. You should check this page from time to time to ensure that you are happy with any changes. This policy is effective from February2021.

What we collect

We may collect the following information from our customers, prospective customers and users of our website:

• name and job title
• contact information including email address, postal address and telephone numbers
• demographic information such as postcode, preferences and interests
• details of your your purchase history;
• records of your correspondence with us, either through our website, social media or by telephone, e-mail or post; details of your use of our website including, but not limited to, cookies, traffic data, location data and other communication data and the resources and services that you access via the website; and
• details of your contact preferences, marketing preferences, interests and any survey responses.

We do not normally collect “special categories” of sensitive personal data from our customers or users of our website. In the event you provide us with any special category data, we will take extra care to ensure your rights are protected.

How information is collected

We will collect personal information through different methods including:

• Direct interactions with you via our website, social media, telephone, email or otherwise;
• Through the service we provide to our customers; and
• Automated technologies or interactions. As users interact with our website, we may automatically collect technical information about your equipment, browsing actions and patterns.

What we do with the information we gather

We need all the categories of information in the list above (see What we collect above) primarily to allow us to perform our contract with our customers and to enable us to comply with our legal obligations. In some cases, we may use your personal information to pursue legitimate interests of our own or those of third parties, provided your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests. We require this information to understand your needs and provide you with a better service, and in particular for the following reasons:

• Internal record keeping.
• To interact with our customers and take steps to enter into a contract;
• To carry out our obligations arising from any contract entered into with our customers;
• To manage our relationship with our customers;
• To ensure that content on our website is presented in the most effective manner for users;
• To allow you to participate in interactive features of our services, when you choose to do so;
• To notify you about changes to our services or to our website;
• To operate and improve the website;
• We may use the information to improve our products and services;
• We may periodically send promotional emails about new products, special offers or other information which we think you may find interesting using the email address which you have provided;
• From time to time, where you agree, we may also use your information to contact you for market research purposes. We may contact you by email, phone, fax or mail. We may use the information to customise the website according to your interests.

We will only use personal information for the purposes for which we collect 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 personal information for an unrelated purpose, we will notify you and we will explain the legal basis which allows us to do so.

Lawful basis for using personal information

We will only use personal information when the law allows us to. Most commonly, we will use personal information in the following circumstances:

a) Where we need to perform a contract we are about to enter into or have entered into with customers and prospective customers.

b) Where we need to comply with a legal obligation.

c) Where it is necessary for our legitimate interests (or those of a third party) and your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests.

d) Where we have obtained your consent (for example to send third party direct marketing communications to you via email or text message). You have the right to withdraw consent to such marketing at any time.

Our marketing communications

We may use the personal information of customers and users of our website to contact you to inform you about services we believe might be of interest to you via email or text message (we call this marketing communications). Users of our website may receive marketing communications from us unless you have opted out or unsubscribed to receiving that marketing.

You can ask us to stop sending you marketing communications at any by following the unsubscribe links on any marketing communications sent to you or by contacting us at any time.

Where you opt out of receiving these marketing communications, this will not apply to personal information provided to us as a result of the provision of our services and we will still be required to contact you in relation to the services we provide.

If you fail to provide personal information:

If you fail to provide certain information when requested either by law, or under the terms of a contract we have with you and you fail to provide that information when requested, we may not be able to perform the contract we have or are trying to enter into with you.

Automated decision-making:

You will not be subject to decisions that will have a significant impact on you based solely on automated decision-making.

Data sharing

We may share personal information with third parties where required by law, where it is necessary to administer the working relationship with you or where we have another legitimate interest in doing so. Third party providers we may share your information with include:

Business partners, suppliers and sub-contractors for the performance of any contract we enter into with them or you such as our card payment providers;

Advertisers and advertising networks that require the data to select and serve relevant adverts to you and others. Analytics and search engine providers that assist us in the improvement and optimisation of our website;

Auditors, accountants and financial organisations;

Insurers, solicitors, professional advisers and consultants

HMRC;

Central and local government;

Local authorities;

Debt collection agencies;

Police forces, courts and tribunals.

Any third parties will be bound by contractual provisions with us and only have access to personal data to perform the described purposes and may not use it for other purposes. Further, they must process the personal data in accordance with this Privacy Policy and as permitted by the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018.

Security

We are committed to ensuring that your information is secure. 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. In addition, we limit access to personal information to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need-to-know. They will only process personal information on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.

We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected data security breach and will notify you and the Information Commissioner’s Office of a suspected breach where we are legally required to do so.

Data retention

We will only retain personal information for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements. Details of retention periods for different aspects of personal information are available upon request. After this period, we will securely destroy personal information in accordance with data protection law.

International transfers of data

The personal information that we collect may be stored at a destination outside the United Kingdom (UK). It may be necessary to transfer and store personal information at a destination outside the UK in order for us to fulfil our obligations to customers in regards to the provision of our services (e.g. to take orders from our customers). We will take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure that personal information is treated securely and in accordance with this policy and, in the event that personal information is transferred outside the UK, shall ensure that this is carried out subject to the requirements of the UK GDPR. This means that your personal information will be subject to one or more of the appropriate safeguards set out in data protection law to ensure your personal information is adequately protected. Further details on the safeguards in place to protect your personal information when transferred outside the UK are available upon request.

How we use cookies

We use cookies to improve the way the website works and to monitor how people use our site. This helps us to understand how people use the website so we can develop and improve the design, layout and function of the website.

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.

You can choose to accept or decline cookies. Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can usually modify your browser setting to decline cookies if you prefer. This may prevent you from taking full advantage of the website.

Which cookies do we use?

Strictly Necessary Cookies

These are cookies that are required for the operation of our website. They include, for example, cookies that enable you to log into secure areas of our website such as when you log into your account. These cookies are essential for our website.

Analytical Cookies

We use analytical cookies to allow us to recognise and count the number of visitors and to see how visitors move around our site when they are using it. This helps us to improve the way our site works, for example, by ensuring that users are finding what they are looking for easily.

In particular, we use analytical cookies to remember which web pages you visit and what you have done on previous pages or previous visits to our site. No personal information is collected by analytical cookies and all information collected is stored safely and securely to prevent unlawful third party access.

Functionality Cookies

Web pages don't have any 'memory' as such and functionality cookies allow us to store information about your activities on our website. This information is automatically removed from our web server once your browser is closed, therefore, each time you visit our website you will be treated as a 'new' visitor.

We want to keep track of your movements across our website and link your actions to ensure that the same information is not asked from you every time you move from one page to the next.

We use a functionality cookie so that we can track the people that log in to the various areas of our website; such as logging into your account. The only information stored on the user's computer is a session ID which composes of alphanumeric characters. This allows our website to identify you when logging into your account and until you log out or your browser is closed. Therefore, you don't need to keep re-entering the same information.

Cookie Preferences

We use cookies to control the appearance of the cookies information panel, and to remember your choice about cookies on our website.

Third Party Cookies

Please note that third parties (including, for example, advertising networks and providers of external services like web traffic analysis services) may also use cookies, over which we have no control. These cookies are likely to be analytical/performance cookies or targeting cookies. You block cookies by activating the setting on your browser that allows you to refuse the setting of all or some cookies. However, if you use your browser settings to block all cookies (including essential cookies) you may not be able to access all or parts of our site.

For more information on cookies and how to disable them please go to the Information Commissioner's webpage on cookies: https://ico.org.uk/for-the-public/online/cookies. You can block cookies by activating the setting on your browser that allows you to refuse the setting of all or some cookies. However, if you use your browser settings to block all cookies (including essential cookies) you may not be able to access all or parts of the 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, you should note that we do not have any control over that other website. Therefore, we cannot be responsible for the protection and privacy of any information which you provide whilst visiting such sites and such sites are not governed by this privacy policy. You should exercise caution and look at the privacy policy applicable to the website in question.

Your rights

Under certain circumstances, by law you have the right to:

Right to request a copy of your information

You can request a copy of your information which we hold (this is known as a subject access request).

Right to correct any mistakes in your information

You can require us to correct any incomplete or inaccurate information.

Right to request erasure of your personal information

This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal information where there is no good reason for us to continue to process it.

Right to object to processing

You have the right to object to processing where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground.

You can ask us to stop contacting you for direct marketing purposes. If you would like to do this, please contact us using the details below.

Right to request the restriction of processing

You have the right to ask us to suspend the processing of personal information about you, for example if you want us to establish its accuracy or the reason for processing it.

Right to request the transfer of your personal information to another party

If you want to review, verify, correct or request erasure of your personal information, object to the processing of your personal information, or request that we transfer a copy of your personal information to another party, please contact us using the contact details below.

Right to withdraw consent

In the limited circumstances where you may have provided consent to the collection, processing and transfer of personal information for a specific purpose has been provided, individuals have the right to withdraw consent for that specific processing at any time. To withdraw your consent, please contact us using the contact details below. Once we have received notification that you have withdrawn your consent, we will no longer process your information for the purpose or purposes you originally agreed to, unless we have another legitimate basis for doing so in law.

Please note, there are some specific circumstances where these rights do not apply and we can refuse to deal with your request.

We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access the information (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is another appropriate security measure to ensure that personal information is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it.

You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal information (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request for access is clearly unfounded or excessive. Alternatively, we may refuse to comply with the request in such circumstances.

Complaints

If you have a concern about the way we are collecting or using personal information, we would ask that you raise your concern with us in the first instance by e-mailing sales@usmartcards.com

Alternatively you can make a complaint to the Information Commissioner’s Office at https://ico.org.uk/concerns/ or write to Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF.

Contact details

If you have any questions about this privacy policy or how we handle personal information, please contact us via sales@usmartcards.com