Privacy Policy

Introduction

This is the privacy policy for The Office Group (“we”, “us” and “our”). We are committed to protecting your privacy both online and offline. We appreciate that you expect the personal information you provide to us to be treated legally and fairly and here we explain how we collect information, what we do with it and what controls you have.

This policy covers all our interactions with our customers, business partners and anyone who is not an employee or contractor of The Office Group. This policy covers how we collect and process personal data via www.theofficegroup.com (“Site”) and the cookies we apply and use on our Site. It also applies to how we process personal data generally in our business.

The Site is operated by The Office Group and all its affiliate companies.

For the purposes of European and UK data protection law, (the “Data Protection Law”), the data controller is The Office Group.

If you have any queries about this Privacy Policy or how we or any other The Office Group Entities (may) collect, store or use your data, please contact our Data Protection Officer by email at [email protected].

Please read the following carefully to understand our views and practices regarding your personal data and how we will treat it.

Information we may collect from and about you

• Information you give us. This is information about you that you give us by filling in forms on our Site or by corresponding with us by phone, e-mail or otherwise. It includes information you provide when you register to use our Site, subscribe to our service, search for a product, place an order on our Site, participate in discussion boards or other social media functions on or via our site, enter a competition, promotion or survey, and when you report a problem with our Site. The information you give us may include:
  • information (such as your name, email address and telephone number) that you provide by completing forms on the Site or any Applications, including if you register as a user of the Site or any Applications, subscribe to any service, upload or submit any material via the Site or any Applications, request any information, or enter into any competition or promotion we may sponsor;
  • a link to your social media account profiles if you choose to provide this, for example, the web address for your LinkedIn profile i.e. linkedin.com/username;
  • information about your job title including details about your role, name of employer, industry, skills and expertise;
  • which of our office locations you use most regularly in accordance with your employment;
  • communications you send to us, for example, to report a problem or to submit queries, concerns or comments regarding the Site or any Applications or its content;
  • information from surveys that we may, from time to time, run on the Site or any Applications for research purposes, if you choose to respond to, or participate in, them; and
  • information from promotions or competitions that we may, from time to time, run on the Site or any Applications, if you choose to respond to, or participate in.

You are under no obligation to provide any of the information listed above. However, if you should choose to withhold requested information, we may not be able to provide you with some or all of our services or to work with you.

• Information we collect about you. With regard to each of your visits to our Site or Applications, or when you visit us in person, we will automatically collect the following information:
  • 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;
  • 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), methods used to browse away from the page, and any phone number used to call our customer service number or social media handle used to connect with our customer service team. We aim to ensure that you cannot be identified from this information and it is only used to assist us in providing an effective service on the Site or Applications and to collect broad demographic information for aggregate use.
  • information we otherwise obtain when you visit us (for example, your image if you sign in or are recorded on CCTV while visiting any of our sites, or you give us the registration details of your vehicle).
  • information about events to which you or those related to you are invited, and your personal information and preferences to the extent that this information is relevant to organising and managing those events (for example, your dietary requirements).
  • information relating to transactions with us involving you or the person that you work for, (for example, details of services that we have supplied to, or obtained from, you or the person you work for).
• Information we collect when you call us. We use software called ResponseTap that means, if you call us direct from our Site, we can combine information collected during that call with information about your browsing session on the Site. We use this to better understand our customers’ experiences, to tailor the sales experience for both parties.
• Information we collect from members.
  • Information to meet our obligations under certain money laundering regulations, we may process information including but not limited to your photograph, utility bills, bank statements and certain other government issued documents (e.g. your passport) in order to verify your identity;
  • Information about your debit/credit card, bank account information and payment status that we require for the purpose of recording and processing your membership application and administering your membership. This may include information about you received from our payment processor or bank, for example whether payment has been declined;
  • information about your use of our buildings, including location data for example, the times and dates of your access to our buildings, who you are visiting or who is visiting you, events you attend and what services you make use of.
• Information we receive from other sources. This is information we receive about you from third parties (any party that refers you to us or provides us with services relating to you, for example). We are working closely with third parties (including, for example, business partners, sub-contractors in technical, payment and delivery services, advertising networks, analytics providers, and search information providers). We will notify you when we receive information about you from them and the purposes for which we intend to use that information.

How we use your information

We use information held about you in the following ways:

• Information you give to us. We will use this information:
  • to carry out our obligations arising from any contracts entered between you and us and to provide you with the information, products and services that you request from us. Legal basis for this processing is that it is necessary for performance of the contract between us;
  • to provide you with information about goods or services we feel may interest you, if you have ticked the relevant box situated on a The Office Group form on which we collect your data indicating your consent to receiving marketing material from us. Legal basis for this processing is your consent;
  • to notify you about changes to our services. Legal basis for this processing is that it is necessary for performance of the contract between us;
  • to ensure in our legitimate interests that content from our Site and Applications is presented in the most effective manner for you and for your computer or device. Legal basis for this processing is that it is in our legitimate interests. Where this purpose is pursued using cookies, this processing is subject to the cookies section of this policy and for non-essential cookies the legal basis is your consent.
• Information we collect about you. We will use this information:
  • to administer our Site and Applications under our terms and for internal operations, including troubleshooting, and, in our legitimate interests, data analysis, testing, research, statistical and survey purposes. Legal basis for this processing is that it is in our legitimate interests. Where this purpose is pursued using cookies, this processing is subject to the cookies section of this policy and for non-essential cookies the legal basis is your consent;
  • to improve our Site and Applications to ensure that content is presented in the most effective manner for you and for your computer. Legal basis for this processing is that it is in our legitimate interests. Where this purpose is pursued using cookies, this processing is subject to the cookies section of this policy and for non-essential cookies the legal basis is your consent;
  • to allow you to participate in interactive features of our services, when you choose to do so. Legal basis for this processing is that it is necessary for performance of the contract between us;
  • to keep our premises, Site and Applications safe and secure. Legal basis for this processing is that it is in our legitimate interests;
  • to measure or understand the effectiveness of advertising we serve to you and others, and to deliver relevant advertising to you. Legal basis for this processing is that it is in our legitimate interests. Where this purpose is pursued using cookies, this processing is subject to the cookies section of this policy and based on your consent;
  • to make suggestions and recommendations to you and other users of our Site and Applications about goods or services that may interest you or them in subject to your stated preferences. Legal basis for this processing is that it is in our legitimate interests. Where this purpose is pursued using cookies, this processing is subject to the cookies section of this policy and based on your consent
  • to enter into, and to perform, contracts with you or the person that you work for. Legal basis for this processing is that it is necessary for performance of the contract between us or a third party.
• Combining Information we receive from multiple sources. We will combine information about Members and prospective customers that we gather from different sources to build profiles of those individuals, to make our service offering more bespoke and relevant. Legal basis for this processing is that it is in our legitimate interests subject always to your rights and expressed preferences.

Disclosure of your information

We share your personal information with:

• Any member of our group, which means our subsidiaries, our ultimate holding company and its subsidiaries.
• Selected third parties including:
  • Business partners, suppliers and sub-contractors for the performance of any contract we enter into with you. Legal basis for this disclosure is that it is necessary for performance of the contract between us;
  • Analytics and search engine providers that assist us in the improvement and optimisation of our Site and Applications and subject to the cookie section of this policy and your consent;
  • Credit reference agencies for the purpose of assessing your credit score where this is a condition of us entering into a contract with you. Legal basis for this disclosure is that the processing is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation to which we are subject.

We will disclose your personal information to third parties:

• in the event that we sell or buy any business or assets, in which case it is our legitimate interest to disclose your personal data to the prospective seller or buyer of such business or assets subject to the terms of this privacy policy. Legal basis for this processing is that it is in our legitimate interests.
• if The Office Group or substantially all of its assets are acquired by a third party, in which case it is our legitimate interest to transfer to make the personal data held by it about its customers to be one of the transferred assets. Legal basis for this processing is that it is in our legitimate interests.
• 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 supply terms and other agreements with you. Legal basis for this disclosure will depend upon the nature of the disclosure but may be the fulfilment of a contract with you or a third party, compliance with a legal obligation; or the pursuit of our legitimate interest to protect the rights, property, or safety of The Office Group, our customers, or others. This includes exchanging information with other companies and organisations for the purposes of fraud and financial crime protection, and credit risk reduction.

External Links

The Site and Applications 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 or the content of such sites. Please check these policies before you submit any personal data to these websites.

Security

We place great importance on the security of all personally identifiable information associated with our users. We have security measures in place to attempt to protect against the loss, misuse, and alteration of personal information under our control. For example, our security and privacy policies are periodically reviewed and enhanced as necessary and only authorised personnel have access to personal information. Whilst we cannot ensure or guarantee that loss, misuse, or alteration of information will never occur, we use all reasonable efforts to prevent it.

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 or Applications; 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.

It is advisable to close your browser when you have finished your user session to help ensure others do not access your personal information if you use a shared computer or a computer in a public place.

Where we store your personal data

All information you provide to us is stored securely on servers provided by trusted third parties. All our third-party providers are carefully vetted for data protection compliance. Any payment transactions will be encrypted using industry approved technologies. 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.

We retain personal data until you decide to unsubscribe. This may include retention necessary to meet to identify issues or resolve legal proceedings. We may also retain aggregate information beyond this time for research purposes and to help us develop and improve our services. You cannot be identified from aggregate information retained or used for these purposes.

If you are based in the UK / European Economic Area (“EEA”) note that your Personal Information may be transferred, processed and stored outside of the EEA, for example in connection with our use of cloud hosted IT systems. In the event that your Personal Information is transferred to, maintained or processed by other parties located in the United States or otherwise outside of the UK / EEA, all such transfers will be made in compliance with applicable law to afford you the same levels of protection as you enjoy within the UK / EEA.

Your rights

You have the right under certain circumstances:

• to be provided with a copy of your personal data held by us;
• to request the rectification or erasure of your personal data held by us;
• refuse to provide and – without impact to data processing activities that have taken place before such withdrawal or to any other existing legal justification of the processing activity in question – withdraw your consent at any time;
• to require to not be subject to any automated decision making which produce legal effects on you or affect you with similar significance;
• to request that we restrict the processing of your personal data (while we verify or investigate your concerns with this information, for example);
• to request that your data be transferred to a third party in a structured and machine-readable format;
• to take legal actions as well as to lodge a complaint before the competent data protection regulators.

Additionally, you shall be entitled to object to the Processing of your Personal Data:

• at any time, if your personal data is used for direct marketing purposes; and based on grounds relating to your particular situation, if your personal data is processed for other purposes.

We will inform you (before collecting your data) if we intend to use your data for marketing purposes or if we intend to disclose your information to any third party for such purposes by checking certain boxes on the forms we use to collect your data. You can also object to receiving further marketing at any time without detriment.

You can also exercise the rights listed above at any time, raise a query about this policy, or amend your preferences, by contacting us at:

[email protected]

If your request or concern is not satisfactorily resolved by us, you may approach your local data protection authority.

Cookies

Our Site and Applications use cookies to distinguish you from other users of our Site and Applications. This helps us to provide you with a good experience when you browse our Site and Applications and allows us to improve them.

Cookies are pieces of information that a website transfers to your hard drive to store and sometimes track information about you.

Some of the cookies and other similar technologies used by the Site and Applications are set by us, and some are set by third parties who are delivering services on our behalf. We may use the following types of cookies:

1. Necessary cookies
2. Performance cookies
3. Marketing cookies
4. Functional cookies

Necessary cookies

Necessary cookies are cookies that are essential for the operation of our website. These cookies enable core functions such as security, network management and accessibility. Necessary cookies are automatically activated and you can only disable these cookies by changing your browser settings, but this may affect the way the website works.

Performance Cookies

Performance cookies serve the purpose of optimising the performance of the website and improving the experience for the user. For this purpose, performance cookies are used to collect and analyse information about the use of the website by visitors. This information includes details about the browser and operating system used, the URL from which users came to our website, the pages accessed or the time a user spent on these pages. Performance cookies are not used to create user profiles.

Marketing Cookies

We use marketing cookies on our website to show you advertisements that correspond to your interests. Marketing cookies are also used to evaluate the efficiency of advertisements. In addition, they limit the number of times a particular advertisement is displayed to you. In some cases, we also pass on the data collected with marketing cookies to third parties. These third parties may combine this information with other information about you that you have provided to them or that they have collected as part of your use of the Services.

Functional cookies

Functional cookies are primarily used to make the use of our website as pleasant as possible for the user by storing information that has already been entered - for example language selection or login data - so that you do not have to re-enter this information each time you visit our website. Furthermore, this data enables us to personalise the use of the website for you, for example by adjusting the corresponding currency details. Finally, we require functional cookies for certain functions on the website, such as playing videos.

Overview on cookies currently used on our website

You can see a full table of the cookies we currently use on our website here. This particularly includes information on the cookie category, the lifespan of the cookie as well as its purpose. Further, the table indicates the provider of the cookie and the personal data processed in relation with the cookie.

We will only drop cookies (except for necessary cookies) with your consent. If you do not activate non-necessary cookie, these cookies will not be dropped, and we will not process your personal data. Please see below for some more information on our use of Google Analytics cookies. The legal basis for our collection of personal data through the use of necessary cookies is that it falls within our legitimate interests, our entitlement to use of all other cookies is based on your consent (which you can withdraw at any time by updating your browser settings)

Please note that this table may regularly be updated if we delete cookies or implement new cookies.

Further information on Google Analytics

Every time someone visits our website, software provided by Google LLC, 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, USA generates cookies.

These cookies can tell us whether you have visited the site before. The information generated by the cookie about your use of this website is generally transmitted to a Google server in the United States and stored there. Google will use this information to evaluate your use of the website, to compile reports on website activity and to provide other services related to website activity and Internet usage to the website operator. The corresponding evaluation of your surfing behaviour is made available to us in anonymised form.

Your browser will tell us if you have these cookies and, if you don’t, we generate new ones. This allows us to track how many individual users we have, and how often they visit the site.

We have activated the IP anonymisation function on this website. As a result, your IP address is truncated by Google within member states of the European Union or other Contracting States to the Agreement on the European Economic Area prior to transmission to the United States. Only in exceptional cases the full IP address will be transmitted to a Google server in the United States and truncated there. The IP address transmitted by Google Analytics as part of Google Analytics will not be merged with other Google data.

We have entered into a data processing agreement with Google. Google rely on the European Commission’s Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs) for transfers of personal data out of the European Economic Area, the UK or Switzerland.

For more information on the handling of user data at Google Analytics, see the Google Privacy Policy.

Cookie settings

Necessary cookies are automatically set when you visit our website. Other non-necessary cookies are deactivated and will only be dropped if you give your prior consent. You may continue with only these necessary cookies by clicking “Continue with necessary cookies only” in the cookie banner. Alternatively, you can consent to all non-necessary cookies by pressing the button "Accept all cookies" in the cookie banner. In addition, you may select the different cookie categories individually by changing the respective toggles on the cookie preference page in the cookie banner. Your settings will be saved accordingly.

Most web browsers allow a certain control of many cookies over the browser settings. For more information about cookies, including how to see which cookies have been set, please visit www.aboutcookies.org or www.allaboutcookies.org.

Please note, however, that by blocking or deleting cookies used on the Site or Applications, you may not be able to take full advantage of the Site or Applications (as the case may be). Methods for disabling the most common cookies on the most common browsers are set out below.

Disabling cookies

The effect of disabling cookies depends on which cookies you disable, but in general the Site and/or Applications may not operate properly if cookies are switched off. You can either disable cookies by adjusting your preferences on the cookie preference page.

Further, you may disable cookies by changing your website browser settings to reject cookies. How you can do this will depend on the browser you use.

For Microsoft Internet Explorer:

1. Choose the menu “tools” then “Internet Options”
2. Click on the “privacy” tab
3. Select the setting the appropriate setting

For Google Chrome:

1. Choose Settings> Advanced
2. Under “Privacy and security,” click “Content settings”.
3. Click “Cookies”

For Safari:

1. Choose Preferences > Privacy
2. Click on “Remove all Website Data”

For Mozilla Firefox:

1. Choose the menu “tools” then “Options”
2. Click on the icon “privacy”
3. Find the menu “cookie” and select the relevant options

For Opera 6.0 and further:

1. Choose the menu Files”> “Preferences”
2. Privacy

Where you have not set your permissions, we may also separately prompt you regarding our use of cookies on the Site.

Changes to this policy

Any changes we make to our privacy policy in the future will be posted on this page and, where appropriate, notified to you by e-mail. Please check back frequently to see any updates or changes to our privacy policy. This policy was last updated on 28.11.2023.

Complaints

Should you wish to make a further enquiry or complain about how your Personal Information is being handled, you may raise your concern with the Information Commissioner’s Office (the “ICO”). Further details on reporting a concern can be found on the ICO’s website at https://ico.org.uk/concerns/handling/.

Contact Us

Questions, comments and requests regarding this privacy policy are welcomed and should be addressed to: [email protected].