Privacy Policy

Privacy

Document contents:

Our Commitment To Your Privacy

Professional Books Limited (The Company, we, us) are committed to protecting and respecting your privacy when conducting business on professionalBooks.co.uk, priceguidesdirect.co.uk, constructionbooks.net, wiringregulations.net & pharmacybooks.co.uk (our sites).

This policy (together with our Terms of Use and any other documents referred to in it, sets out the basis on which any personal data we collect from you, or that you provide to us, will be processed by us. Please read the following carefully to understand our views and practices regarding your personal data and how we will treat it. By visiting our sites and/or providing your Personal Information to us you are accepting and consenting to the practices described in this policy.

For the purpose of the Data Protection Act 1998 (the Act) and applicable legislation in force from time to time, the data controller is Professional Books Limited (company number 07271521) of Old Kingdom Hall, Avon Terrace, Devizes, Wiltshire SN10 2BH.

Personal Information

What Personal Information Do We Collect?

The type and quantity of information we collect and how we use it depends on why you are providing it. Personal Information is information or pieces of information that could allow you to be personally identified.

We may collect and process data about you including the following:

Your name;
Address
E-mail address;
Phone number and financial, credit and debit card information when you make a purchase or call our customer service number;
Technical information, including the Internet protocol (IP) address used to connect your computer to the Internet, your login information, browser type and version, time zone setting, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform, device information;
Information about your visit, including the full Uniform Resource Locators (URL) clickstream to, through and from our site (including date and time); products you viewed or searched for; page response times, download errors, length of visits to certain pages, page interaction information (such as scrolling, clicks, and mouse-overs), and methods used to browse away from the page;
Information collected through cookies, pixel tags and other technologies including shopping habits and preferences;
Location information;
Aggregate information; and
Demographic information and other information provided by you.

How Do We Collect Personal Information?

We and our suppliers may collect Personal Information in a variety of ways including:

Through the site

You may give us information about you by filling in forms on our site, making orders and using the site - this includes information you provide when you search for a product, place an order on our site, submit a review or use social media functions on our site or register to our site and when you report a problem with our site;

Offline

We may collect Personal Information from you offline such as when you telephone our customer service number. We may record calls for training and quality purposes. Where your call is to be recorded, you will be informed of this at the beginning of the call. We may use the information that we collect from you for training and monitoring the quality of the information that we provide you over the telephone. Call recordings are stored securely and access to such recordings is limited to certain personnel only. Recorded calls will be saved for no longer than is necessary;

From You

Information such as date of birth, gender and post code, as well as other information, such as your preferred means of communication, may be collected when you voluntarily provide this information to us;

From other sources

We work closely with third parties (including, for example, business partners, sub-contractors in technical, payment and delivery services, advertising networks, social networking platforms, analytics providers, public databases, search information providers, credit reference agencies) and may also receive information about you from them. If you elect to connect your social media via our site, certain Personal Information from your social media account will be shared with us which may include Personal Information that is part of your profile or your friends' profiles. We are not responsible for, the privacy, information or other practices of any third parties from which information is received and you should review their policies and practices to ensure you are happy with how they treat your data;

Cookies

Our site uses Cookies to distinguish you from other users of our site. This helps us to provide you with a good experience when you browse our site and also allows us to improve our site. For detailed information on the Cookies we use and the purposes for which we use them, please see our Cookie Policy. If you do not want information collected through the use of Cookies, there is a simple procedure in most browsers that allows you to decline the use of Cookies, but it should be noted that some Cookies are required to add products to your basket and transact on the site. To learn more about this procedure and Cookies more generally please visit the Cookies Information page provided by the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO);

Through your browser or device

Certain information is collected by most browsers or automatically through your device. We use this information for statistical purposes as well as to ensure that the site functions properly;

Through server log files

Your “IP Address” is a number that is automatically assigned to the computer or device that you are using by your Internet Service Provider (ISP). An IP Address is identified and logged automatically in our server log files whenever a user visits the site, along with the time of the visit and the page(s) that were visited; and

Physical Location

We may collect the physical location of your device.

In some cases, we may use a third party payment service such as SagePay to process purchases made through the site. In these cases, your Personal Information may be collected by this third party and not by us, and will be subject to the third party's Privacy Policy, rather than this Privacy Policy. We have no control over, and are not responsible for, this third party's use or disclosure of your Personal Information.

How do we Use Personal Information?

We may use information held about you in a number of ways including:

To carry out our obligations arising from any contracts entered into between you and us and to provide you with the information, products and services that you request from us, communicate with you regarding your purchase and respond to your questions and comments;
To provide you with information about other goods and services we offer that are similar to those that you have already browsed, purchased or enquired about, in a way that is as relevant to you as possible;
To build a profile of you with the aim to personalise product and service recommendations, perform targeted marketing, and for the purposes for fraud protection. Some of this profiling information may sit with third parties such as our email and anti-fraud service providers.
To provide you with information about goods or services we feel may interest you. We will only contact you by electronic means (telephone, fax, email or SMS) with information about goods and services similar to those which were the subject of a previous sale or negotiations of a sale to you. If you do not want us to use your data in this way please Contact Us;
To ensure that content from our site is presented in the most effective manner for you and for your computer.
To administer our site and for internal operations, including troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, research, statistical and survey purposes and to send administrative information to you, for example changes to our Terms, Conditions and Policies. Please note that because this information is important to your use of the site and treatment of your Personal Information, you may not opt-out of receiving these communications but we will keep such communications to a minimum;
For our business purposes, such as analysing and managing our businesses, market research, audits, developing new products, enhancing our site, ensuring content is presented in the most effective manner for you and your computer, improving our services and products, identifying usage trends, determining the effectiveness of our promotional campaigns, tailoring the site's experience and content based on your past activities on the site, gauging customer satisfaction and providing customer service (including troubleshooting in connection with customer issues);
To process payment. All financial, credit and debit card information is handled according to Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS) compliant rules and processes. We store fragments of your credit card number, it's expiry date, country of issue, and billing postcode. We do not store the full card number or CVV. Card details entered in checkout are transmitted directly to our payment processing partner (a direct payment gateway) from your browser and are not transmitted directly to us. All direct payment gateways adhere to the standards set by PCI-DSS as managed by the PCI Security Standards Council, which is a joint effort of brands like Visa, MasterCard, American Express and Discover. PCI-DSS requirements help ensure the secure handling of credit and debit card information by our store and our suppliers and service providers;
To allow you to participate in interactive features of our service, when you choose to do so;
As part of our efforts to keep our site safe and secure;
For information on how we use Cookies, please see our cookie policy and below in section E. Targeted Marketing; 
To measure or understand the effectiveness of advertising we serve to you and others, and to deliver relevant advertising to you (see section E. Targeted Marketing);
To make suggestions and recommendations to you and other users of our site about goods or services that may interest you or them;
To combine information you give to us and information we collect about you. We may use this combined information for the purposes set out above (depending on the types of information we receive); and
As we believe to be necessary or appropriate: (a) under applicable law, including laws outside your country of residence; (b) to comply with legal process; (c) to respond to requests from public and government authorities including public and government authorities outside your country of residence; (d) to enforce our Terms and Conditions; (e) to protect our operations or those of any of our affiliates; (f) to protect our rights, privacy, safety or property, and/or that of our affiliates, you or others; and (g) to allow us to pursue available remedies or limit the damages that we may sustain.

Disclosure Of Your Information

We may share your information with selected third parties including:

Third parties including business partners, suppliers and sub-contractors who provide services to us (such as credit card processing services, order fulfilment, analytics, site management, information technology and related infrastructure provision, customer service, e-mail service providers for sending transactional and marketing emails, auditing, and other similar services). When we share Personal Information with such third party providers we require that they use your Personal Information to the extent necessary for providing services to us (or you, as the case may be) and not for their own marketing purposes;
Advertisers and advertising networks that require selected data to tailor and serve relevant adverts to you and others (please see below section E. Targeted Advertising for more information). For the avoidance of doubt we will never share sensitive Personal Information, such as your bank, credit / debit card or full address details for such purposes;
Analytics and search engine providers that assist us in the improvement and optimisation of our site;
To prospective buyers, in the event that we sell any business or assets, in which case we may disclose your personal data to the prospective buyers of such business or assets. All customer data held by us is considered the property of The Company;
In the event that The Company or substantially all of its assets are acquired by a third party, in which case personal data held by it about its customers will be one of the transferred assets; and
If we are under a duty to disclose or share your personal data in order to comply with any legal obligation, or in order to enforce or apply our Terms of Use or Terms of Sale or to protect the rights, property, or safety of The Company, our customers, or others.

Targeted Advertising

We may use third-party advertising companies to serve targeted advertisements on our behalf. These companies may use Cookies or other technologies (such as a 1×1 pixel .gif file, also known as a web beacon) collected from your visits to our sites and other third party websites to:

Tailor advertisements you see on third party websites and social media (including Facebook) to deliver adverts more relevant to you;
To track your response to advertisements; and/or
Report on visitor interaction and to measure the effectiveness of advertisements.

If you would like to opt-out of this retargeting please see guidance under section 4 (Access, Modifications and Choices). If in doubt, please Contact Us.

The following social media sites require you to select your interest-based advertising preferences directly on their websites: Facebook and Twitter. We suggest you also regularly review your privacy and advertising settings within all of your social media accounts.

We use the Google AdWords remarketing service to advertise on third party websites (including Google) to previous visitors to our site. It could mean that we advertise to previous visitors who haven't completed a task on our site, for example using the contact form to make an enquiry or adding an item to their basket. This could be in the form of an advertisement on the Google Search Results Page, or a site in the Google Display Network. Third-party vendors, including Google, use cookies to serve ads based on someone's past visits to our site. Any data collected will be used in accordance with our own Privacy Policy and Google's Privacy Policy. Visitors can opt-out of Google Analytics for display advertising and customise Google Display Network ads using Google's Ad Settings page. Users can completely block Google Analytics tracking using Google's Opt-out browser add-on.

Storage and Security

All information you provide to us is stored on our secure servers. All interactions with our sites, including payment transactions, will be encrypted using SSL technology. Where we have given you (or where you have chosen) a password which enables you to access certain parts of our site, you are responsible for keeping this password confidential. We ask you not to share a password with anyone.

Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure. Although we will do our best to protect your personal data, we cannot guarantee the security of your data transmitted to our site; any transmission is at your own risk. Once we have received your information, we will use strict procedures and security features to try to prevent unauthorised access.

The data that we collect from you may be transferred to, and stored at, a destination outside the European Economic Area ("EEA"). It may also be processed by staff operating outside the EEA who work for us or for one of our suppliers; this includes staff engaged in, among other things, the fulfilment of your order, the processing of your payment details and the provision of support services.

By using our site, you acknowledge and consent to the potential transfer, processing and storage outside of the EEA. You should be aware that many countries outside the EEA do not afford the same legal protections to Personal Information as countries within the EEA. Transfers will be made in accordance with the applicable legislation and we will take reasonable and necessary measures (so far as it is within our control to do so) to ensure that third parties involved will provide an adequate level of protection.

Access, Modification and Choices

We aim to give you as many choices regarding our use and disclosure of your Personal Information.

You have the right to ask us not to use your personal data for marketing purposes. The easiest way to do so is by clicking the link provided at the bottom of any one of our emails in order to unsubscribe, although please note that this will not alter the collection of your data for the purposes of targeted advertising (see section E. Targeted Advertising). To find out more about the ways in which you can opt-out please Contact Us.

Please note that changes to our use of your Personal Information may not be effective immediately. We will endeavour to comply with your request(s) as soon as reasonably practicable and in no event later than 30 days after we received your request. Please also note that if you do opt-out of receiving marketing-related messages from us, we may still send you important administrative messages.

When you order from us, we will send you administrative emails relating to that order. These include but are not limited to: a confirmation of your order, notification of dispatch, and tracking information. If you receive an email confirmation of an order you did not place please contact us.

You have the right to access, change and/or delete Personal Information we hold about you. Your right of access can be exercised in accordance with applicable laws. Any access request may be subject to a fee of £10 to meet our costs in providing you with details of the information we hold about you. We will notify you if a charge is applicable before proceeding with your request.

We will try to comply with your requests as soon as reasonably practicable and within a maximum of 30 days. If your request is more complex, will we provide an update within 30 days, and aim to comply within a maximum of 90 days. Please note that despite our efforts, there may be residual information that will remain within our databases and other records, which will not be removed or changed immediately. Further, please note that we may need to retain certain information for recordkeeping purposes and/or to complete any transactions that you began prior to requesting such change or deletion (e.g. when you make a purchase or enter a promotion, you may not be able to change or delete the Personal Information provided until after the completion of such purchase or promotion).

The consequences of choosing not to provide your Personal Information that we request from time to time are that we may not be able to deliver the goods or services you have requested, fulfil your orders or carry out our obligations under any contract entered into between you and us. Please Contact Us if you would like to understand more about your options.

Third Party Sites

This Privacy Policy does not address, and we are not responsible for, the privacy, information or other practices of any third parties, including any third party operating any site where the site contains a link to our sites. The inclusion of a link on our site does not imply endorsement of the linked site by us.

Additionally, we may provide you with access to third-party functionality that permits you to post content to your social media account(s). Please note that any information that you provide through use of this functionality is governed by the applicable third party's Privacy Policy, and not by this Privacy Policy. We have no control over, and shall not be responsible for, any third party's use of information that you provide through use of this functionality.

We are also not responsible for the collection, usage and disclosure policies and practices (including the data security practices) of other organisations, such as Facebook, Apple, Twitter, Google, Microsoft or any other app developer, app provider, social media platform provider, operating system provider, wireless service provider or device manufacturer, including any Personal Information you disclose to other organisations through or in connection with the apps or our social media pages.

Retention Period

We will retain your Personal Information only for the period necessary to fulfil the purposes outlined in this Privacy Policy. We have an internal retention policy where there are varying retention periods for different categories of information depending on our legal obligations and whether there is a commercial need, such as answering customer account queries. After a retention period has elapsed, the data is deleted.

Children's Personal Information

If you are under the age of 18, you should review the terms of this Privacy Policy with your parent or guardian to make sure you both understand them. Although we are not responsible for determining the age of our users, we may carry out verification checks. If we learn that we have collected information from an individual under the age of 18 without parental consent, then we will delete that information as soon as possible and may at our discretion disable such individual's access to the site. If you believe that we have mistakenly or unintentionally collected Personal Information of a minor through our channels without appropriate consent, please Contact Us immediately.

We offer books and items for young adults for purchase by adults. For the protection of children's privacy, we require parental consent from users who wish to make an order for one of these items for any users under the age of 18.

Sensitive Information

We generally ask that you do not send us, and you do not disclose, any sensitive Personal Information (e.g., information related to racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religion or other beliefs, health or medical condition, criminal background or trade union membership) on or through the site or otherwise to us. If you believe that we have mistakenly or unintentionally collected sensitive Personal Information through our channels please Contact Us immediately.

Changes To Our Privacy Policy

Any changes we may make to our Privacy Policy in the future will be posted on this page. Please check back frequently to see any updates or changes to our Privacy Policy. Any changes to this Privacy Policy will become effective when we post the revised Privacy Policy on the site. Your continued use of the site following these changes means that you are deemed to accept the revised Privacy Policy.

Contact

Please do not hesitate to Contact Us if you have any questions, comments or concerns about this Privacy Policy.

As stated in the sections above, you have various rights with regard to your Personal Information including the right to tell us if you:

do not want to be contacted in the future by us;
would like to find out what information we have about you, would like a copy of the Personal Information which we hold about you. (You may be charged an administration fee when we provide you with the requested information to cover our time and postage and handling or retrieval costs);
if you think that any Personal Information we hold about you is inaccurate, incomplete, out-of-date or irrelevant; and
wish to report any breaches of the Privacy Policy.

If you have any questions or complaints about this Privacy Policy, please Contact Us. We will investigate any complaint, and notify you of our decision in relation to the complaint, as soon as practicable after it is received.

If we are unable to satisfactorily resolve your concerns about our handling of your Personal Information, you can contact the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) either through their website: https://ico.org.uk/or through the ICO telephone helpline: 0303 123 1113.

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