We respect your privacy and are determined to protect your personal data. The purpose of this privacy notice is to inform you as to how we look after your personal data when you visit our website (regardless of where you visit it from).
We’ll also tell you about your privacy rights and how data protection law protects you.
1. WHO WE ARE AND IMPORTANT INFORMATION
What is the purpose of this privacy notice?
This privacy notice aims to give you information on how we collect and process your personal data through your use of this website, including any data you may provide through this website when you complete an enquiry form, send an email enquiry to us, sign up to our newsletter or purchase services from us.
This website is not intended for children and we do not knowingly collect data relating to children.
You must read this privacy notice together with any other privacy 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.
Data controller(s)
The Buying Agent Partnership network of Buying Agents is made up of different legal entities. This privacy notice is issued on behalf of Buying Agent Partnership Limited, so when we mention Buying Agent Partnership, “we”, “us” or “our” in this privacy notice, we are referring to the relevant company in the network responsible for processing your data. We will let you know which entity will be the controller for your data when you purchase a service with us or a member of our network.
For all data matters contact the Operations Manager on 0330 223 6339 or email at hello@buyingagent.com
Buying Agent Partnership Limited is the controller and responsible for this website.
Third-party links outside of our control
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 PERSONAL DATA WE COLLECT ABOUT YOU
Personal data, or personal information, means any information about an individual from which that person can be identified. You can find out more about personal data from the Information Commissioners Office.
We may collect, use, store and transfer different kinds of personal data about you which we have grouped together follows:
- Identity Data includes your title, first name and surname, gender and marital status.
- Contact Data may include your home, work and/or billing address, email address and telephone numbers.
- Technical Data may include your login data, internet protocol addresses, browser type and version, social media handles, browser plug-in types and versions, time zone setting and location, operating system and platform and other technology on the devices you use to access this site
- Profile Data may include previously used services, your interests, preferences, feedback and survey responses
- Usage Data may include information about how you use our website, services and operating systems
- Marketing and Communications Data may include your preferences in receiving marketing communications from us and our third parties and your communication preferences.
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 your 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 WE COLLECT YOUR PERSONAL DATA
- Directly. You may give us your identity and contact details by filling in forms or by corresponding with us by post, phone, email or otherwise. This includes personal data you provide when you:
- Enquire about services and/or fees;
- Subscribe to our service or publications;
- Request marketing to be sent to you.
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:
- Performance of Contract this 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.
- Legitimate Interest this means the interest of our business in conducting and managing our business to enable us to give you the best service/product and the 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 hello@buyingagent.com
- Comply with a legal or regulatory obligation this means processing your personal data where it is necessary for compliance with a legal or regulatory obligation that we are subject to.
- Technical Data may include your login data, internet protocol addresses, browser type and version, social media handles, browser plug-in types and versions, time zone setting and location, operating system and platform and other technology on the devices you use to access this site.
- Marketing and Communications may include your preferences in receiving marketing communications from us and our third parties and your communication preferences.
- Profile Data may include your previously used services, your interests, preferences, feedback and survey responses.
- Identity Data may include your first name, last name, title, date of birth, gender, national insurance number, photograph.
- Contact Data may include your home, work and/or billing address, email address and telephone numbers.
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, with the legal bases we rely on to do so.
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 us 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 deliver relevant website content and advertisements to you and measure and understand the effectiveness of our advertising | (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. | 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 site 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.
We would like to send you information about services, events and news which we believe may be of interest to you.
You will receive marketing communications from us if you have:
• Requested information from us or have used our services
• Completed and online web form and ticked the consent box
• Attended an event of ours previously
• Signed up to receive a newsletter
• Are a professional intermediary of the firm
If you wish to stop receiving marketing emails from us please email hello@buyingagent.com at any time or use the ‘Unsubscribe’ button on template email messages we may share with you from time to time.
Where you opt out of receiving our marketing communications, this will not apply to personal data provided to us as a result of a service experience.
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.
You will receive marketing communications from us if you have requested information from us or purchased services from us and, in each case, you have not opted out of receiving that marketing.
Third-party marketing
We will get your express opt-in consent before we share your personal data with any company outside the Buying Agent Partnership group of companies for marketing purposes.
Opting out
You can ask us to stop sending you marketing messages at any time by following the opt-out links on any marketing message sent to you.
Where you opt out of receiving these marketing messages, this will not apply to personal data provided to us as a result of a service purchase, or service experience or other transactions.
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 www.buyingagent.com/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 the Operations 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. WHO WE SHARE YOUR PERSONAL DATA WITH
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.
- Internal Third Parties such as group companies and associates/franchisees
- External Third Parties Service: for example, IT software providers
- Providers of IT and system administration services.
- Professional advisers acting as processors including lawyers, bankers, auditors and insurers based in the United Kingdom who provide consultancy, banking, legal, insurance and accounting services.
- HM Revenue & Customs, regulators and other authorities acting as processors based in the United Kingdom 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
Countries outside of the European Economic Area (EEA) do not always offer the same levels of protection to your personal data, so European law has prohibited transfers of personal data outside of the EEA unless the transfer meets certain criteria.
Many of our third parties service providers are based outside the European Economic Area (EEA) so their processing of your personal data will involve a transfer of data outside the EEA.
Whenever we transfer your personal data out of the EEA, we do our best to ensure a similar degree of security of data by ensuring at least one of the following safeguards is implemented:
- We will only transfer your personal data to countries that have been deemed to provide an adequate level of protection for personal data by the European Commission; or
- Where we use certain service providers, we may use specific contracts or codes of conduct or certification mechanisms approved by the European Commission which give personal data the same protection it has in Europe; or
- Where we use providers based in the United States, we may transfer data to them if they are part of the EU-US Privacy Shield which requires them to provide similar protection to personal data shared between the Europe and the US.
If none of the above safeguards are available, we may request your explicit consent to the specific transfer. You will have the right to withdraw this consent at any time. Please email us at hello@buyingagent.com if you want further information on the specific mechanism used by us when transferring your personal data out of the 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
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.
By law we have to keep basic information about our customers (including contact, identity, financial and transaction data) for six years after they cease being customers for tax purposes.
In some circumstances you can ask us to delete your data: see Your legal rights below for further information.
In some circumstances we may anonymise your personal data (so that it can no longer be associated with you) for research or statistical purposes in which case we may use this information indefinitely without further notice to you.
9. YOUR LEGAL RIGHTS
Unless subject to an exemption under the data protection laws, you have the following rights with respect to your personal data:
- The right to request a copy of the personal data which we hold about you;
- The right to request that we correct any personal data if it is found to be inaccurate or out of date;
- The right to request your personal data is erased where it is no longer necessary to retain such data;
- The right to withdraw your consent to the processing at any time, where consent was the lawful basis for processing your data;
- The right to request that we provide you with your personal data and where possible, to transmit that data directly to another data controller, (known as the right to data portability), where applicable 9i.e. where our processing is based on consent or is necessary for the performance of our contract with you or where we process your data by automated means);
- The right, where there is a dispute in relation to the accuracy or processing of your personal data, to request a restriction is placed on further processing;
- The right to object to our processing of personal data, where applicable i.e. where processing is based on our legitimate interests (or in performance of a task in the public interest/exercise of official authority); direct marketing or processing for the purposes of scientific/historical research and statistics).
If you wish to exercise any of the rights set out above, please contact the Operations Manager.
No fee required – with some exceptions
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 admin 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. 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.
11. CHANGE TO THIS NOTICE AND YOUR DUTY TO INFORM OF US CHANGES
This version was last updated on 9th January 2023 and historic versions can be obtained by contacting us.
Please keep us informed if your personal data changes during your relationship with us. It is important that the personal data we hold about you is accurate and current.
12. QUERIES, REQUESTS OR CONCERNS
To exercise all relevant rights, queries or complaints in relation to this policy or any other data protection matter between you and us, please in the first instance email hello@buyingagent.com
If this does not resolve your complaint to your satisfaction, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioners Office on 0303 123 1113 or by post to The Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF, England, UK.