Privacy Policy

 

Privacy and Security

This page is designed to provide you with information about how we use the personal data and information that you provide to us during your use of the ElekDirect website and any communication (for example telephone) made between us relating to such use.

ElekDirect Limited is the data controller of the information you provide. ElekDirect Limited (t/a ElekDirect) is a company registered in England and Wales with registered number 08328323. We are part of the AO World PLC group of companies and our registered office address is 5A Parklands, Lostock, Bolton, BL6 4SD.

We may change our privacy policy from time to time. This policy was last updated on 4th March 2019 and is version 1.

Your Information and Why We Process It

The information we collect when you place an order with us includes: name, address, telephone numbers. Through your product reviews you may provide us further personal data including family size, affluence, gender or we may collect such data from third party data aggregators. Further we may have images of you if you use Olapic, profiling data technical information about your internet connection and browser as well as the country and telephone code where your computer is located, the web pages viewed during your visit, the advertisements you clicked to, IP addresses and cookies.

We only collect, keep, use or share your information for genuine business purposes, when you’ve approved us to do so, or when we’re obliged to legally. There are a few reasons why we use your personal details:

  1. if you contact us with an enquiry either by telephone or email;
  2. to process any order that you place on our website and arrange for its delivery;
  3. to make our website accessible to you with informative content tailored to your needs including serving you with any pop-up messages and voucher codes;
  4. promoting and advertising (including personalisation) of our products both on our website and elsewhere on the internet;
  5. to train our employees to ensure that we are providing the best possible service;
  6. we record telephone calls for compliance and legal reasons;
  7. when you provide a review on our website;
  8. when you enter any of our competitions;
  9. matching and aggregating your personal data for analysis and to provide you with a more personalised experience;
  10. to analyse any problems with our website and improve its performance;
  11. when you engage with us on any social media platform;
  12. we also use personal details to contact you regarding our services and products and if we need to verify your identity;
  13. for research, analysis, testing, monitoring, risk management and administration purposes; and
  14. for crime or fraud prevention purposes.

Basis For Processing

For ElekDirect to be allowed to process your personal data, we must have a legal basis for the processing. The data protection legislation sets out what these bases are. We have described below the different bases that we rely on and provided examples of the processing.

Contractual

There are some contractual reasons why we have to process your personal data. When you buy a product on our website, it creates a contract between us. We need to process the personal data that you provide in order to fulfil our part of the contract. If you do not provide your details we won’t be able to complete your order.

Legal

Sometimes we are required to process the personal data that we hold about you for legal reasons – for example, if there is a product recall.

Legitimate Interests

We also rely on being able to process your personal data on the basis that it is in our legitimate interests. When we do this we will always consider your interests and balance any positive or negative impact relating to such processing and your legal rights relating to data protection. The legitimate interests of ElekDirect do not automatically override your interests.

If you do not want us to process any of the personal data we have listed as being processed for legitimate purposes, you have the right to object. For more information see the section below relating to your rights below. Please note that if you object we may still continue to process your personal data in certain circumstances. Please also remember that if we can’t process your personal data for these purposes your customer experience may not be as enjoyable.

Our legitimate interests include:

  • analysing and understanding your customer journey and behaviour to improve efficiencies and interaction
  • calling you to discuss your delivery
  • promoting and advertising our products both on our website and elsewhere on the internet
  • analysing our website’s performance and solving any problems
  • staff training
  • personalisation of your shopping experience

Consent

In some cases, we will ask whether you would like us to process your personal data. For example, if you would like us to notify you when an out of stock item becomes available or if you enter into a competition. If you provide us with consent, you may withdraw it at any time by contacting us.

When We’ll Contact You

We may contact you by telephone shortly after your purchase to discuss your delivery and make sure that it all goes smoothly for you.

When You Contact Us

If you get in touch by email to ask a question about your order or our products, we’ll keep a record of your emails and our responses. This helps us to resolve any problems, and to answer your query quickly and easily if you need to get in touch again. It also helps us to check our advisors have all the training they need to give you the best possible help. Your telephone calls to ElekDirect may also be recorded for training and regulatory purposes.

Information We’ll Share

We share your information in very limited circumstances set out below:

  • where we’re obliged to do so (for example a legal request);
  • when we need to work with a third party or core service provider, for example a delivery service, insight companies, marketing communications providers or IT service providers. Each provider is carefully selected, and we’d only pass on the information required for them to perform that service on our behalf; they cannot use your data for any other purpose e.g. their own marketing purposes;
  • with our group companies who may provide us with services;
  • with our insurance brokers or insurers for claims (or potential claims) purposes;
  • social media platforms or internet platforms (this is based on cookies – for more information see our cookies policy;

We’ll never sell your information. We’ll always comply with all relevant data protection legislation (including the General Data Protection Regulation).

We sometimes share anonymised information and analytics with third parties but not in a way that they could identify you as an individual.

We use third party payment service providers which are integrated into our website. When you pay using one of these methods e.g. PayPal, you are redirected to the provider’s portal. Your use of these services are subject to the terms and conditions (and privacy policies) of the payment providers.

Transfers To Third Countries

ElekDirect may transfer your personal data outside of the European Economic Area. This will only be as a result of our service providers being based outside of this area e.g. cloud hosting service providers such as Amazon Web Services or Microsoft Azure. We will always ensure that such providers are in a country that has been assessed to provide adequate protection to personal data by the European Commission, or if the service provider signs a contract with us which contains the relevant protections for you; for example, if a company is based in the United States of America and has signed up to the Privacy Shield we may also send personal data to them for the limited purposes referred to above.

How Long Do We Keep Your Information?

We will only keep your personal data for as long as it remains necessary in line with the reason that we collected it from you and to meet any legal requirements (such as resolving a dispute). The time that the personal data is kept for is called the retention period. We retain your personal data relating to the purchase of your products for a period of 10 years after your purchase. This is in line with certain product liability provisions under the Consumer Protection Act 1987.

If you call or message our contact centre with an enquiry (but do not place an order) we will keep your personal data for one month.

If you receive marketing emails and SMS from us and have not unsubscribed from these messages we will continue to process your personal data for this purpose for a maximum period of four years. You may ask us to stop processing for this purpose at any time.

Your Rights

You have a set of legal rights in relation to your personal data. These rights are to ensure that you are in control of how your personal data is used by organisations. We have provided a summary of your rights below:

  • You have the right to know what personal data we store that relates to you (also known as a subject access request);
  • If any personal data is not correct (for example it is old information), you have the right for it to be corrected;
  • You have the right to tell us to stop using your personal data for the purpose of sending you direct marketing;
  • You have the right to tell us you no longer consent to any processing, which was based on you giving consent;
  • You have the right to ask us to no longer process your information on the basis of our legitimate interests. We will stop processing your personal data unless there is a legitimate reason that does not prejudice you.
  • You have the right to ask us to erase your personal data where the personal data is no longer necessary for the purpose for which it is collected. The right to erasure is not an absolute right.
  • You have the right to ask for an individual to review any decision made using an automated process.

If you would like to exercise any of your rights, please contact us at dataprotection@ao.com

If you ask us to no longer send you any marketing (by email or SMS) please allow 48 hours for your request to be processed in our system.

Contacting The Information Commissioner’s Office

If you are not happy with the way in which we have dealt with your personal data or your enquiries relating to that personal data, it is your right to make a complaint to the data protection regulator. The regulator is the Information Commissioner’s Office. You can find more detail at www.ico.org.uk.

Contacting Us

We’re always looking for new ways to improve your shopping experience with us, that’s why we love hearing from you. If you have any questions about how we use your personal data or if you’d like to amend or stop us from processing your data (for marketing purposes), please contact us. You can get in touch by giving our friendly contact centre a call on 01204 531234 or you can write to us at our registered office address – 5A Parklands, Lostock, Bolton, BL6 4SD.

We have appointed a Data Protection Officer (DPO). You may contact the DPO by writing to us at the registered office address set out above or by emailing dataprotection@ao.com.

Security

Your privacy is important to us which is why we’ve ensured every part of our site uses secure connections. Look for the padlock in the address bar and the letters ‘https’, as these should always be present when browsing our site.

We only take orders through web browsers that allow communication through Secure Socket Layer (SSL) technology. There’s no way you can order through an unsecured connection.

To keep you safe, we gain accreditation from the Payment Card Industry (PCI) every year. This third-party certification certifies that we take appropriate precautions to make sure your details are kept safe. This covers everything from ensuring our teams are well trained in the security risks and vulnerabilities today, to implementing security compliant IT solutions. More information regarding this security standard can be found here: https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/pci_security/

For extra security, you’ll see our checkout uses Verified by Visa, Mastercard SecureCard and American Express Safekey, which safeguards you from unauthorised use of your cards. Once you’ve registered and created a password with your card issuer, you’ll be prompted to provide this each time you check out.

We’re constantly monitoring and testing our IT systems and using the latest technology to identify potential vulnerabilities and attacks to provide a safe and secure shopping environment.

Cookies

We may change our cookies policy from time to time. This policy was last updated on 4th March 2019 and is version 1.

Cookies are small files containing letters and numbers that are stored in your browser or on the hard drive of your device, and they’re used to transfer information.

Manage Cookie Preferences

There are different types of cookies that we use. We’ve given you more information below so you understand why we use these cookies:

Information About Our Use Of Cookies

Our website uses cookies to distinguish you from other users of our website. This helps us to provide you with a better experience when you browse our website and also allows us to improve our site. By continuing to browse the site, you are agreeing to our use of cookies.

We use the following cookies:

  • Essential cookies. These are cookies that are required for the operation of our website. They include, for example, cookies that enable you to navigate our website, and use its features. When you return to the site, they enable us to remember the products that you’ve looked at or added to your basket.
  • Personalisation cookies. These allow us to recognise and count the number of visitors to our website, and see how they use it. This helps us to learn where we can improve the way our website works, for example, by ensuring that users are finding what they are looking for easily. We will track the volume of people on our site, where they click and where they exit the site.
  • Remarketing cookies. These cookies record your visit to our website, the pages you have visited and the links you have followed. We will use this information to make our website and the advertising displayed on it more relevant to your interests. We may also share this information with third party service providers so that we can show adverts that are relevant to you elsewhere on the internet.

By continuing to browse our website, you provide consent to us storing these cookies on your device and using them if you visit our site again. You can delete cookies at any time in your device browser. The method of deletion will vary so please check the help section on your device browser for more information. If you delete or block cookies it may affect the way our website works for you.