Privacy policy
What personal information we collect, why we use it, who we share it with, and what rights you have.
This policy explains what personal information Automated Business Systems (ABS) Limited (“ABS”, “we”, “us”) collects, why we use it, who we share it with, and what rights you have. It applies when you visit our website, get in touch with us, or deal with us as a customer, prospective customer, supplier or partner.
Who we are
ABS is the controller of the personal information described in this policy. That means we decide how and why it is used.
| Company | Automated Business Systems (ABS) Limited |
|---|---|
| Company number | 03021997 |
| Place of business | 7 Station Approach, Wendover, Buckinghamshire, HP22 6BN |
| Registered office | 76 Lincoln Road, Cressex Business Park, High Wycombe, England, HP12 3RH |
| Telephone | 01296 696700 |
| Data protection contact | Phil Abbott, Director, phil@abslimited.co.uk |
| ICO registration number | ZA381294 |
We work closely with our sister companies, IT System Integrators Ltd and E-Commerce Strategies Ltd. They are separate companies and are responsible for their own use of personal information. Both organisations are ICO registered as follows: ITSI: ZA177928, ECS: ZA381823.
What information we collect
Information you give us
- Your name, email address, telephone number, company name, and the subject and content of your message, when you use our contact form or email or phone us.
- Business contact details and records of our dealings with you, if you are a customer, prospective customer, supplier or partner.
Information collected automatically
- Technical information such as your IP address, browser type and version, device and operating system, and the pages you request. This comes from our web server. We do not use analytics. See our Cookie Policy.
- Your IP address and basic browser information are also received by Google when a page loads the typefaces the site uses from Google Fonts.
- If you start a live chat, your name and email address, which we ask for before the chat starts so we can reply if we are not on the desk, what you write, and technical details such as your IP address, browser and the page you were on. The chat is run by tawk.to.
Information from other sources
- Business contact details from publicly available sources, such as company websites and LinkedIn, when we contact businesses about our services.
We do not intentionally collect sensitive personal information (such as health details), and our website is not aimed at children. Please don’t send us sensitive information through the contact form.
How we use your information
We must have a lawful basis for using personal information. This table shows what we use it for and the basis we rely on.
| What we use it for | Our lawful basis |
|---|---|
| Responding to enquiries and requests made through our contact form, live chat, email or phone | Legitimate interests (running our business and answering people who contact us), or taking steps at your request before entering a contract |
| Providing, supporting and managing our services and customer relationships, including contracts and invoicing | Contract, and legal obligation (for accounting and tax) |
| Keeping our website working and secure, and preventing misuse | Legitimate interests |
| Telling businesses about our products, services and events | Legitimate interests, and your consent where the law requires it (for example, for some email marketing) |
| Meeting legal and regulatory obligations, and protecting our legal rights | Legal obligation, and legitimate interests |
Where we rely on legitimate interests, we have weighed our interests against your rights and expectations. You can ask us about that balance at any time.
Marketing
If you are a business contact, we may send you information about our products, services and events by email, post or phone. You can opt out at any time by using the unsubscribe link in an email or by contacting us. We never sell personal information.
Who we share it with
We share personal information only where we need to, with:
- Service providers that help us run our business and website, such as website hosting and maintenance, IT and cloud services (including Microsoft), and email and customer-management systems.
- Google, which supplies the typefaces the website uses (Google Fonts).
- tawk.to, which runs our live chat, if you start a chat.
- Cloudflare, which delivers our website, checks that enquiry forms are sent by a person rather than a program (Turnstile), and passes your enquiry on to us.
- Resend, which delivers enquiries from our website’s forms to our mailbox as email. It stores them for a short time to deliver them.
- Professional advisers, such as accountants, lawyers and insurers.
- Authorities, courts and regulators, where the law requires it.
- A buyer or other party involved, if all or part of our business is sold or reorganised.
Our service providers must protect your information and may only use it on our instructions.
Transfers outside the UK
Some of our providers, including Google and tawk.to, may process information outside the UK. When that happens, we make sure appropriate safeguards are in place, such as UK adequacy regulations, the UK Extension to the EU-US Data Privacy Framework, or the UK International Data Transfer Agreement or Addendum.
How long we keep it
| Information | How long we keep it |
|---|---|
| Website enquiries that don’t lead to a customer relationship | 12 months after our last contact |
| Customer and supplier records | 7 years after the relationship ends, to meet accounting and legal requirements |
| Marketing contact details | Until you opt out |
| Live chat transcripts and messages | Kept on tawk.to’s servers, encrypted, until we delete them |
We delete or anonymise information when we no longer need it.
Keeping it secure
We use technical and organisational measures to protect personal information, including access controls, encryption where appropriate, and secure back-ups. No system is completely secure. If a personal data breach happens, we will report it to the Information Commissioner’s Office and to you where the law requires us to.
Your rights
You have the right to:
- be told how we use your information (this policy);
- ask for a copy of the personal information we hold about you;
- have inaccurate information corrected;
- have your information erased, in some circumstances;
- restrict how we use your information, in some circumstances;
- receive information you gave us in a portable format, where we rely on consent or contract;
- object to our use of your information, including for marketing (this right is absolute for marketing); and
- withdraw your consent at any time, where we rely on it.
We do not make decisions about you based solely on automated processing.
To use any of these rights, contact us using the details above. We may need to check your identity. We normally reply within one month, and there is usually no charge. If your request is complex, we may extend that by up to two further months and will tell you why.
Complaints
If you are unhappy with how we have used your information, please contact us first so we can put it right. We will acknowledge your complaint within 30 days and respond without undue delay. You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office at ico.org.uk or on 0303 123 1113.
When we handle data for our customers
When we support or host software for our customers, for example by supporting a Priority ERP system, we usually handle the personal information in that system on the customer’s behalf and on their instructions. In that case the customer is the controller and we are their processor, so this policy does not apply. Please contact the customer about that information. Our contracts with customers set out how we protect it.
Other websites
Our website links to other sites, such as LinkedIn. We are not responsible for their privacy practices, so please read their policies.
Changes to this policy
We review this policy regularly. When we change it, we will post the new version on this page with a new date, and if the change is significant we will make that clear on our website.
Contact us
Questions about this policy or your information: phil@abslimited.co.uk, 01296 696700, or write to us at 7 Station Approach, Wendover, Buckinghamshire, HP22 6BN.