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Privacy and Cookie Policy

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to Germinal’s privacy notice.

At Germinal, we use cookies to manage your experience and our services. Using cookies and other similar technologies, we use cookies set by us to manage essential website functionality, our advertising partners and Google to ensure you get the best experience when shopping with us, to personalise content with ads and to analyse how our website is used. 

Germinal respects your privacy and is committed to protecting your personal data. We think it’s important for you to understand the cookies we use and other similar technologies are used by Germinal and our partners. Many of these features help the Germinal website function, allow us to understand how you use our services, and give us insight into the website traffic.

This privacy notice will inform you how we look after your personal data when you visit our website (regardless of where you visit it from) and tell you about your privacy rights and how the law protects you.

For your convenience, we have presented our privacy notice in a layered format so you can click through to the specific areas below. Please also use the Glossary to understand the meaning of some of the terms used in this privacy notice if required.

  1. IMPORTANT INFORMATION AND WHO WE ARE
  2. THE DATA WE COLLECT ABOUT YOU
  3. HOW IS YOUR PERSONAL DATA COLLECTED
  4. HOW WE USE YOUR PERSONAL DATA
  5. DISCLOSURES OF YOUR PERSONAL DATA
  6. INTERNATIONAL TRANSFERS
  7. DATA SECURITY
  8. DATA RETENTION
  9. YOUR LEGAL RIGHTS
  10. GLOSSARY
  11. COOKIE POLICY

1. IMPORTANT INFORMATION AND WHO WE ARE

PURPOSE OF THIS PRIVACY NOTICE

This privacy notice aims to give you information on how Germinal collects and processes your personal data through your use of this website, including any data you may provide through this website, for example, when you purchase a product or service.

This website is not intended for children and we do not knowingly collect data relating to children.

It is important that you read this privacy notice together with any other privacy notice or fair processing notice we may provide on specific occasions when we are collecting or processing personal data about you so that you are fully aware of how and why we are using your data. This privacy notice supplements the other notices and is not intended to override them.

CONTROLLER

Germinal is made up of the following legal entities: Germinal Holdings Ltd; Germinal NI Ltd, Germinal GB Ltd and Germinal Ireland Ltd. This privacy notice is issued on behalf of the Germinal Group so when we mention “Germinal”, “we”, “us” or “our” in this privacy notice, we are referring to the relevant company in the Germinal Group responsible for processing your data. Germinal Holdings Limited is the controller and responsible for this website.

We have appointed a data privacy manager who is responsible for overseeing questions in relation to this privacy notice. If you have any questions about this privacy notice, including any requests to exercise your legal rights, please contact the data privacy manager using the details set out below.

CONTACT DETAILS

Full name of legal entity: Germinal Holdings Ltd

Name or title of data privacy manager: Nicholas Cardwell

Email address: [email protected]

Postal address: 1 Clarence Street, Belfast, BT2 8DX

Telephone number: 02890 406794

You have the right to make a complaint at any time to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK supervisory authority for data protection issues (www.ico.org.uk). We would, however, appreciate the chance to deal with your concerns before you approach the ICO so please contact us in the first instance.

CHANGES TO THE PRIVACY NOTICE AND YOUR DUTY TO INFORM US OF CHANGES

This version was last updated on 25.05.18.

It is important that the personal data we hold about you is accurate and current. Please keep us informed if your personal data changes during your relationship with us.

THIRD–PARTY LINKS

This website may include links to third–party websites, plug–ins and applications. Clicking on those links or enabling those connections may allow third parties to collect or share data about you. We do not control these third–party websites and are not responsible for their privacy statements. When you leave our website, we encourage you to read the privacy notice of every website you visit.

2. THE DATA WE COLLECT ABOUT YOU

Personal data, or personal information, means any information about an individual from which that person can be identified. It does not include data where the identity has been removed (anonymous data).

We may collect, use, store and transfer different kinds of personal data about you which we have grouped together follows:

  • Identity Data includes information such as your name.
  • Contact Data includes billing address, delivery address, email address and telephone numbers.
  • Financial Data includes payment card details.
  • Transaction Data includes details about payments to and from you and other details of products and services you have purchased from us.
  • Technical Data includes internet protocol (IP) address, your login data, browser type and version, time zone setting and location, browser plug–in types and versions, operating system and platform and other technology on the devices you use to access this website.
  • Usage Data includes information about how you use our website, products and services.
  • Marketing and Communications Data includes your preferences in receiving marketing from us and our third parties and your communication preferences.

We also collect, use and share Aggregated Data such as statistical or demographic data for any purpose. Aggregated Data may be derived from your personal data but is not considered personal data in law as this data does not directly or indirectly reveal your identity. For example, we may aggregate your Usage Data to calculate the percentage of users accessing a specific website feature. However, if we combine or connect Aggregated Data with your personal data so that it can directly or indirectly identify you, we treat the combined data as personal data which will be used in accordance with this privacy notice.

We do not collect any Special Categories of Personal Data about you (this includes details about your race or ethnicity, religious or philosophical beliefs, sex life, sexual orientation, political opinions, trade union membership, information about your health and genetic and biometric data). Nor do we collect any information about criminal convictions and offences.

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 or services). In this case, we may have to cancel a product or service you have with us but we will notify you if this is the case at the time.

3. HOW IS YOUR PERSONAL DATA COLLECTED?

We use different methods to collect data from and about you including through:

  • Direct interactions. You may give us your Identity, Contact and Financial Data by filling in forms or by corresponding with us by post, phone, email, by interacting with us through our social media channels or otherwise. This includes personal data you provide when you:
    • apply for our products or services;
    • create an account on our website;
    • subscribe to our service or publications;
    • request marketing to be sent to you;
    • enter a competition, promotion or survey; or
    • give us some feedback.
  • Automated technologies or interactions. As you interact with our website, we may automatically collect Technical Data about your equipment, browsing actions and patterns. We collect this personal data by using cookies and other similar technologies. We may also receive Technical Data about you if you visit other websites employing our cookies. 
  • Third parties or publicly available sources. We may receive personal data about you from various third parties as set out below:
    • Technical Data from the following parties:
    (a) analytics providers such as Google based outside the EU;
    (b) social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn; and
    (c) online retailers such as ebay and Amazon.
    • Financial Data from credit reporting agencies such as Experian.
    • Identity and Contact Data from data brokers.

4. HOW WE USE YOUR PERSONAL DATA

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

  • Where we need to perform the contract we are about to enter into or have entered into with you.
  • 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.
  • Where we need to comply with a legal or regulatory obligation.

Generally we do not rely on consent as a legal basis for processing your personal data other than in relation to sending third party direct marketing communications to you via email or text message. You have the right to withdraw consent to marketing at any time by contacting our data privacy manager or unsubscribing to any of the emails which you may receive.

PURPOSES FOR WHICH WE WILL USE YOUR PERSONAL DATA

We have set out below, in a table format, a description of all the ways we plan to use your personal data, and which of the legal bases we rely on to do so. We have also identified what our legitimate interests are where appropriate.

Note that we may process your personal data for more than one lawful ground depending on the specific purpose for which we are using your data. Please contact our data privacy manager if you need details about the specific legal ground we are relying on to process your personal data where more than one ground has been set out in the table below.

Purpose/Activity

Type of data

Lawful basis for processing including basis of legitimate interest

To register you as a new customer

(a) Identity

(b) Contact

Performance of a contract with you

To process and deliver your order including:

(a) Manage payments, fees and charges

(b) Collect and recover money owed to us

(a) Identity

(b) Contact

(c) Financial

(d) Transaction

(e) Marketing and Communications

(a) Performance of a contract with you

(b) Necessary for our legitimate interests (to recover debts due to us)

To manage our relationship with you which will include:

(a) Notifying you about changes to our terms or privacy policy

(b) Asking you to leave a review or take a survey

(a) Identity

(b) Contact

(c) Profile

(d) Marketing and Communications

(a) Performance of a contract with you

(b) Necessary to comply with a legal obligation

(c) Necessary for our legitimate interests (to keep our records updated and to study how customers use our products/services)

To enable you to partake in a prize draw, competition or complete a survey

(a) Identity

(b) Contact

(c) Profile

(d) Usage

(e) Marketing and Communications

(a) Performance of a contract with you

(b) Necessary for our legitimate interests (to study how customers use our products/services, to develop them and grow our business)

To administer and protect our business and this website (including troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, system maintenance, support, reporting and hosting of data)

(a) Identity

(b) Contact

(c) Technical

(a) Necessary for our legitimate interests (for running our business, provision of administration and IT services, network security, to prevent fraud and in the context of a business reorganisation or group restructuring exercise)

(b) Necessary to comply with a legal obligation

To deliver relevant website content and advertisements to you and measure or understand the effectiveness of the advertising we serve to you

(a) Identity

(b) Contact

(c) Profile

(d) Usage

(e) Marketing and Communications

(f) Technical

Necessary for our legitimate interests (to study how customers use our products/services, to develop them, to grow our business and to inform our marketing strategy)

To use data analytics to improve our website, products/services, marketing, customer relationships and experiences

(a) Technical

(b) Usage

Necessary for our legitimate interests (to define types of customers for our products and services, to keep our website updated and relevant, to develop our business and to inform our marketing strategy)

To make suggestions and recommendations to you about goods or services that may be of interest to you

(a) Identity

(b) Contact

(c) Technical

(d) Usage

(e) Profile

Necessary for our legitimate interests (to develop our products/services and grow our business)

MARKETING

We strive to provide you with choices regarding certain personal data uses, particularly around marketing and advertising.

PROMOTIONAL OFFERS FROM US

We may use your Identity, Contact, Technical, Usage and Profile Data to form a view on what we think you may want or need, or what may be of interest to you. This is how we decide which products, services and offers may be relevant for you (we call this marketing).

You will receive marketing communications from us if you have requested information from us or purchased products or services from us or if you provided us with your details when you entered a competition or registered for a promotion and, in each case, you have not opted out of receiving that marketing.

OPTING OUT

You can ask us or third parties to stop sending you marketing messages at any time by following the opt–out links on any marketing message sent to you or by contacting our data privacy manager at any time.

Where you opt out of receiving these marketing messages, this will not apply to personal data provided to us as a result of a product/service purchase.

COOKIES

You can set your browser to refuse all or some browser cookies, or to alert you when websites set or access cookies. If you disable or refuse cookies, please note that some parts of this website may become inaccessible or not function properly. For more information about the cookies we use, please see our cookie policy.

CHANGE OF PURPOSE

We will only use your personal data for the purposes for which we collected it, unless we reasonably consider that we need to use it for another reason and that reason is compatible with the original purpose. If you wish to get an explanation as to how the processing for the new purpose is compatible with the original purpose, please contact our data privacy manager.

If we need to use your personal data for an unrelated purpose, we will notify you and we will explain the legal basis which allows us to do so.

Please note that we may process your personal data without your knowledge or consent, in compliance with the above rules, where this is required or permitted by law.

5. DISCLOSURES OF YOUR PERSONAL DATA

We may have to share your personal data with the parties set out below for the purposes set out in the table in paragraph 4 above.

  • Service providers acting as processors who enable us to deliver the product and/or service to you such as couriers.
  • Service providers who will contact you in order to request a review of the service and/or products which we have provided to you.
  • Professional advisers acting as processors or joint controllers including lawyers, bankers, auditors and insurers who provide consultancy, banking, legal, insurance and accounting services.
  • HM Revenue & Customs, regulators and other authorities acting as processors or joint controllers who require reporting of processing activities in certain circumstances.
  • Third parties to whom we may choose to sell, transfer, or merge parts of our business or our assets. Alternatively, we may seek to acquire other businesses or merge with them. If a change happens to our business, then the new owners may use your personal data in the same way as set out in this privacy notice.

We require all third parties to respect the security of your personal data and to treat it in accordance with the law. We do not allow our third–party service providers to use your personal data for their own purposes and only permit them to process your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.

6. INTERNATIONAL TRANSFERS

We do not transfer your personal data outside the European Economic Area (EEA).

7. DATA SECURITY

We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your personal data to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need to know. They will only process your personal data on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.

We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected personal data breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a breach where we are legally required to do so.

8. DATA RETENTION

HOW LONG WILL YOU USE MY PERSONAL DATA FOR?

We will only retain your personal data 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.

To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we consider the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal data, the purposes for which we process your personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal requirements.

Details of retention periods for different aspects of your personal data are available upon request from our data protection manager.

9. YOUR LEGAL RIGHTS

Under certain circumstances, you have rights under data protection laws in relation to your personal data. Please contact our data privacy manager if you would like any further information regarding any of the following:

  • Request access to your personal data.
  • Request correction of your personal data.
  • Request erasure of your personal data.
  • Object to processing of your personal data.
  • Request restriction of processing your personal data.
  • Request transfer of your personal data.
  • Right to withdraw consent.

If you wish to exercise any of the rights set out above, please contact our data privacy manager.

NO FEE USUALLY REQUIRED

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

WHAT WE MAY NEED FROM YOU

We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access your personal data (or to exercise any of your other rights). 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.

TIME LIMIT TO RESPOND

We try to respond to all legitimate requests within one month. Occasionally it may take us longer than a month if your request is particularly complex or you have made a number of requests. In this case, we will notify you and keep you updated.

10. GLOSSARY

LAWFUL BASIS

Legitimate Interest means the interest of our business in conducting and managing our business to enable us to give you the best service/product and the best and most secure experience. We make sure we consider and balance any potential impact on you (both positive and negative) and your rights before we process your personal data for our legitimate interests. We do not use your personal data for activities where our interests are overridden by the impact on you (unless we have your consent or are otherwise required or permitted to by law). You can obtain further information about how we assess our legitimate interests against any potential impact on you in respect of specific activities by contacting our data privacy manager.

Performance of Contract means processing your data where it is necessary for the performance of a contract to which you are a party or to take steps at your request before entering into such a contract.

Comply with a legal or regulatory obligation means processing your personal data where it is necessary for compliance with a legal or regulatory obligation that we are subject to.

YOUR LEGAL RIGHTS

You have the right to:

  1. Request access to your personal data (commonly known as a “data subject access request”). This enables you to receive a copy of the personal data we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.
  2. Request correction of the personal data that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate data we hold about you corrected, though we may need to verify the accuracy of the new data you provide to us.
  3. Request erasure of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal data where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. You also have the right to ask us to delete or remove your personal data where you have successfully exercised your right to object to processing (see below), where we may have processed your information unlawfully or where we are required to erase your personal data to comply with local law. Note, however, that we may not always be able to comply with your request of erasure for specific legal reasons which will be notified to you, if applicable, at the time of your request.
  4. Object to processing of your personal data 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 as you feel it impacts on your fundamental rights and freedoms. You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal data for direct marketing purposes. In some cases, we may demonstrate that we have compelling legitimate grounds to process your information which override your rights and freedoms.
  5. Request restriction of processing of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of your personal data in the following scenarios: (a) if you want us to establish the data’s accuracy; (b) where our use of the data is unlawful but you do not want us to erase it; (c) where you need us to hold the data even if we no longer require it as you need it to establish, exercise or defend legal claims; or (d) you have objected to our use of your data but we need to verify whether we have overriding legitimate grounds to use it.
  6. Request the transfer of your personal data to you or to a third party. We will provide to you, or a third party you have chosen, your personal data in a structured, commonly used, machine–readable format. Note that this right only applies to automated information which you initially provided consent for us to use or where we used the information to perform a contract with you.
  7. Withdraw consent at any time where we are relying on consent to process your personal data. However, this will not affect the lawfulness of any processing carried out before you withdraw your consent. If you withdraw your consent, we may not be able to provide certain products or services to you. We will advise you if this is the case at the time you withdraw your consent.

11. COOKIE POLICY

Like most websites, the Germinal website tracks information about visitor behaviour whenever they interact with the website. This tracking includes the use of “cookies”. Cookies are pieces of information transferred to your computer’s hard drive through your web browser when viewing the website. These pieces of information allow the website to act on information that will make your use of our website more rewarding.

Where applicable, the Germinal website uses a cookie control system, which allows the user on their first visit to the website to allow or disallow the use of cookies on their computer/device. This complies with legislation requirements for websites to obtain explicit user consent before leaving behind or reading files such as cookies on a user’s computer/device.

Among the cookies used on Germinal’s site are for Google Analytics. This website uses tracking software to monitor its visitors to better understand how they use it. Google Analytics provides this software, which uses cookies to track visitor usage. Google Analytics customers can view a variety of reports about how visitors interact with their website so that they can improve it. You can read more about this in Google’s Privacy & Terms.

Like many services, Google Analytics uses first-party cookies to track visitor interactions, as in our case, where they are used to collect information about how visitors use our site. We then use the information to compile reports and to help us improve our site.

We also use cookies to collect aggregated, anonymous information such as the pages viewed or searched for, the time spent on the website and how many pages have been visited. By using this website, you, therefore, accept and agree to use these cookies.

Other cookies may be stored on your computer’s hard drive by external vendors when this website uses referral programs, sponsored links or adverts. Such cookies are used for conversion and referral tracking and typically expire after 30 days, though some may take longer. No personal information is stored, saved or collected.

None of these cookies record any personally identifiable information.

HOW TO MANAGE COOKIES?

If you do not wish to receive cookies from our site, you can reject them by selecting the cookies you wish to allow in the settings area when first visiting our site or by changing your browser settings. The “help” portion of a toolbar on most browsers will tell you how to protect your browser from accepting new cookies, how to notify the browser when you receive a new cookie, or how to disable cookies altogether.