We hope you will enjoy being a customer of Richter Limited t/a Golden Hill Garage, and we want to make sure your experience is as safe and useful as possible. Here you can find details of what data we collect from you, how we use it, when we may disclose this data to others, how we keep it secure and how our website works.

Richter Limited t/a Golden Hill Garage (Company Registration Number 04673924) takes the issue of security and data protection very seriously and complies with all UK data protection legislation. It is notified as Data Controller with the Information Commissioner’s Office under registration number Z8154271 and is the data controller for any personal data that you provide to us.

The following policy details the personal data we collect from you or from third parties and the purpose it is collected for.

The law says that the personal information we hold about you must be:

• used lawfully, fairly and in a transparent way;
• collected only for legitimate purposes that we have clearly explained to you and not used in any way that is incompatible with those purposes;
• relevant to the purposes we have told you about and limited only to those purposes;
• accurate and kept up to date;
• kept only for as long as is necessary for the purposes we have told you about; and
• kept securely.

This policy amounts to a privacy notice for the purposes of the Data Protection Act 2018 and contains all the information which we are required to provide to you under data protection legislation.

1. Personal information that we collect

We may obtain information about you when you contact us on site, over the telephone, by email, on-line or through any other medium. We may also be provided with information about you from third party organisations including, but not limited to, vehicle finance providers, and insurance companies.

We may collect the following categories of data:

• Identity information such as name, date of birth, driving licence details, any identity proofs provided to us, employment details, etc;
• Contact information such as your address, telephone number, email details, etc;
• Transaction and claims data information about your vehicle including registration number, payment and financial information;
• Location information
• CCTV images
• Correspondence from or to you
• Call recordings
• Technical data, eg your IP address, the type of device you use to interact with us, details of how you interact with our site, etc.

In very limited circumstances we may also collect special category, or sensitive, data in the form of limited health information.

2. The Lawful Bases We Use to Process Data

Whenever we process your personal information, we need to be able to demonstrate that we have a lawful basis to do so. The lawful bases that we rely on when processing your information are:

• Contract: Where we need to process your personal information in order to perform our obligations to you in respect of any contract, or anticipated contract, we enter into with you;
• Legal Obligation: Where we are required to process your information by law;
• Vital Interests: Where processing is necessary to protect your, or someone else’s, life;
• Legitimate Interest: Where processing is necessary for us to conduct our business, but not where our interests are overridden by your interests or rights;
• Consent: Where you have provided your explicit consent.

3. How We Use Your Information

We will use the personal data that you provide, or that we collect, as follows:

To provide you with goods or services (contract)

We will use your identity, contact, and transaction data to contact you regarding the goods and services you have requested, to provide you with these goods and services, to take payment for them, and to personalize the service we offer to you. We may also use these details to help you source finance for the associated goods and/or services from a number of the finance companies on our carefully selected panel of lenders. Our finance partners will, in turn, share the details with one or more of the main credit reference agencies. Details of our finance partners’ privacy policies and the Credit Reference Agency Information Notices (CRAINs) can be found on their individual websites. We may share some of these details with your vehicle manufacturer to enable them to process any warranty or service records, to enable them to send important recall information to you. Details of their use of your data can be found in their privacy policies, which can be found on their websites.

To source insurance products for you (contract)

We will use your identity, contact, transaction, and claims data to source insurance products for you. We may use the same information if we assist you to make a claim on any of the insurance products that we have sourced for you.

To inform you about products and services that may interest you (consent)

It is your choice whether we keep you up to date with news, updates, promotions, and events by the types of communication that you have asked us to. We will not contact you for these purposes unless you have given your prior consent. We may also ask for your explicit consent for your vehicle manufacturer to contact you for marketing purposes. Details of how to amend this consent can be found in the relevant manufacturer’s privacy policy.

To ensure our website operates properly and provides the best possible user experience (legitimate interest)

We use cookies and other similar technologies to keep track of your preferences when using our site. We use other cookies and similar technologies to help us understand how you use the site; this allows us to optimize your experience and continually improve our site.

To monitor and improve our products and services (legitimate interest)

We may record calls to and from our customer-facing telephone numbers. We also keep details of any correspondence you may have with our sales/service team or of any interaction you have with us on social media. We use these records to manage your queries or complaints effectively, for quality monitoring, and to continually improve our services. We will use your contact and transaction information to invite you to take part in customer satisfaction surveys. We will use the information you return to us to help monitor our performance and to improve our level of service to our customers.

To prevent and detect crime (legitimate interest)

We will use your identity, contact, and transaction data to assist in monitoring for fraudulent transactions or suspected money laundering. We may also obtain information about your current vehicle from our third-party suppliers for these purposes. We use CCTV monitoring to help protect our customers, staff, and property.

To fulfill our legal obligations (legal obligation)

We will use your contact and transaction information to enable us to comply with our legal obligations including the need to keep proper books and records for accounting, tax, and regulatory purposes. We will also use the information you provide to identify you when you contact us and, to comply with our data protection obligations, we may ask for further proof of identity before sharing any personal data with you.

To remind you of your Service and MOTs due on your vehicle (legitimate interest)

We will remind you about vehicle services and MOTs which are due to ensure (where applicable) the continued validity of any warranty, that your vehicle remains safe and legal to drive and to maintain our customer relationship with you.

To verify the accuracy of the personal data we hold on you (legitimate interest)

We may check the accuracy of the data which we hold about you and create a better understanding of you as a customer and to ensure we meet our obligations to keep data as accurate as possible during your time with us as a customer.

Market Research/Analysis (legitimate interest)

We may undertake market analysis and market research (including sending you customer surveys) to enable us to improve the service we offer to our customers.

4. Special Category Data

Where we use special category data, we must have a lawful reason for doing so and must also meet one of the specific exceptions provided. We will use the special category data that you provide as follows:

• To provide you with goods and services (contract - consent)

Where applicable, we may use limited health information that you provide to us for the purposes of providing you with goods or services. This will only be done where strictly necessary, for instance for the purposes of adapting vehicles to your specific needs or where the information is required as part of an insurance application or claim. This information will only be used with your specific consent.

• To fulfil our legal obligations (legal obligation – social protection law)

In the unlikely event that you have an accident on our premises, we are required to maintain appropriate records of the incident, and any injury sustained, under Health & Safety legislation.

• To resolve any claim or dispute (legitimate interest – legal defence)

Similarly, we may use details of any incident to resolve any legal claim or dispute involving you or us.

• To provide you with a service that meets your specific needs (legal obligation - consent)

As a regulated firm, we are required to keep details of any potential customer vulnerabilities, where this is relevant, we will only process this information with your explicit consent.

5. How Long We Keep Your Data

How long we keep your data depends on what products and services you have with us. However, we will not keep it any longer than we need to. This means we’ll continue to hold some information for a while after your account has closed or our relationship has ended. For example, where we need to for HMRC, for the regulator, for active or potential legal proceedings, to resolve or defend claims or for making remediation payments.

6. Sharing Your Information

We treat all the information we hold as confidential. We may share your information with other people or companies, who are also required to keep this information confidential, safe, and secure. For example, we may share your information with the vehicle manufacturers or one of our partner finance companies for the provision of goods or services to you whilst you are a customer.

We may also disclose your personal data to third parties in certain circumstances, including:

• where it is necessary to use a third-party processor to carry out one of our processing activities including direct marketing communications agencies and consultants, data storage and destruction companies and market research and market analytics service providers;
• where we use a third-party supplier to provide you with the goods or services;
• when we have a legal obligation to share your information with a third party including, but not limited to, government agencies, local authorities, the police or the courts;
• if we sell any business or assets, in which case we may disclose your personal data to the prospective buyer of such business or assets;
• if Golden Hill Garage or substantially all of its assets are acquired by a third party, in which case personal data held by us will be one of the transferred assets.

7. Your Rights in Relation to Your Information

Data protection law gives you specific rights in respect of the personal information which we hold about you. Your rights include the following:

• Your right of access: You may request, at any time, a copy of the personal information the Company holds about you. This right always applies but there are some exceptions, which means in some limited circumstances you may not receive all the information which we process.
• Your right to rectification: You have the right to ask us to rectify the information, which you believe to be inaccurate. Furthermore, you also have the right to ask us to complete information you believe to be incomplete. This right always applies.
• Your right to erasure: In certain circumstances you may be entitled to request the erasure of personal information that we hold about you but only if:
• the personal data is no longer required for the purposes for which it was obtained;
• the data is being processed on the basis of consent and you withdraw this consent and no other lawful basis for its retention exists;
• where the data is processed on a legitimate interests basis, you object to the processing of personal data and there are no overriding legitimate grounds for the processing;
• if your personal data requires deletion in line with legal requirements.
• Your right to restriction of processing: In certain circumstances, you may ask that we continue to store your Personal Data but not use it. For example, if you consider that we hold Personal Data relating to you that you may need for legal purposes, you can request us to not delete this information.
• Your right to data portability: You have the right to request that some of your personal data is provided to you, or to another data controller, in a commonly used, machine-readable format.

Who can I complain to?

If you wish to exercise any of these rights, we would ask that you first please contact the Managing Director at Golden Hill Garage, 208-214 Golden Hill Lane, Leyland, PR25 2YE. 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). If we can’t fix the issue, you can complain to the Information Commissioners Office (ICO). The ICO is the UK’s independent body set up to uphold your rights. You can find out more at www.ico.org.uk.

8. Data Security

Once we have received your information, we will use strict procedures and security features to prevent your personal information from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorized way, altered, or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your personal information to those employees and third parties who have a genuine need to know. We store your data on secure servers inside the UK and the European Economic Area (EEA). If we transfer your data outside the EEA we will take steps to ensure that appropriate security measures with the aim that your rights continue to be protected as set out in this policy.

9. How We Use Cookies

The Golden Hill Garage website uses cookies to help improve our website and make your browsing experience more useful, more relevant, and tailored to you. By using the website you consent and agree to our use of cookies in accordance with the terms of this privacy notice. A cookie consists of a piece of text sent by a web server to a web browser, and stored by the browser. The information is then sent back to the server each time the browser requests a page from the server. This enables the web server to identify and track the web browser. We may use both ‘session’ cookies and ‘persistent’ cookies on the website. We will use the session cookies to: keep track of you whilst you navigate the website; and other uses. We will use the persistent cookies to: enable our website to recognize you when you visit; and other uses.

Session cookies will be deleted from your computer when you close your browser. Persistent cookies will remain stored on your computer until deleted, or until they reach a specified expiry date. We use Google Analytics to analyze the use of this website. Google Analytics generates statistical and other information about website use by means of cookies, which are stored on users’ computers. The information generated relating to our website is used to create reports about the use of the website. Google will store this information. Google’s privacy policy is available at: http://www.google.com/privacypolicy.html. Most browsers allow you to reject all cookies, whilst some browsers allow you to reject just third party cookies. Blocking all cookies will, however, have a negative impact upon the usability of many websites, including this one. You can choose to decline cookies by changing your browser settings.

10. Third Party Sites and Social Networking

Our website may, from time to time, contain links to and from the websites of our partner networks, advertisers, and affiliates. If you follow a link to any of these websites, please note that these websites have their own privacy policies and that we do not accept any responsibility or liability for these policies. Please check these policies before you submit any personal data to these websites.

Our website may offer you the opportunity to share or follow information about us (or the website or our services) using third party social networking functionality (such as through "share this", "like" or "follow" buttons). We offer this functionality in order to generate interest in us, the website and our services among the members of your social networks, and to permit you to share and follow opinions, news and recommendations about us with your friends. However, you should be aware that sharing personal or non-personal information with a social network may result in that information being collected by the social network provider or result in that information being made publicly available, including through Internet search engines. Please note that we do not endorse or control the policies or practices of any third-party social network whose functionality you may access through the website. You should always read the privacy policy of any social network through which you share information carefully in order to understand their specific privacy and information usage practices.