What Information do we collect and why?
Alert BI processes data (i.e. the collection and recording of it), so that it can supply commercial data about organisations to other organisations. The purpose of this processing is to enable businesses to manage their financial risks, protect against fraud, know who they are doing business with, meet compliance and regulatory obligations and better understand organisations, industries and markets. We also licence or sell professional business contact information for marketing and data management purposes.
Therefore we collect information on businesses and business professionals. This is our ‘Commercial Data’, and includes the following examples:
- Company and business professional contact information, including name, job title, address, phone number, fax number, e-mail address, domain names, and trade associations
- Detailed company profiles and statistics, including number of employees
- Company operational histories, including territories, subsidiaries, affiliates, and lines of business
- Business information regarding profitability, debts, assets, net worth and business relationships
Alert BI does not seek to collect any information in relation to a European resident’s race or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership, health, sex life or sexual orientation, genetic or biometric data.
Our data originates from:
- Organisations
- Data vendors
- Governmental and administrative public records, such as business registrations, company filings
- Public sector information (e.g. Charity Commission, Company Registrars)
Unless customers have explicitly agreed otherwise, we do not obtain personal data from the data our customers supply us with in order to provide them with a service.
Who do we share this information with?
We share the commercial data we collect (and that may include personal data), with:
- Customers – businesses and organisations with whom we enter into agreements to licence or access our data for the purposes outlined in our ‘Grounds of processing’ section
- Re-sellers – we licence information to authorised re-sellers and third party businesses for re-selling
Disclosing personal data
We may disclose personal data as required or appropriate in order to protect our website, business operations or legal rights, or in connection with a sale or merger involving Alert BI assets or businesses. (In the event that Alert BI is purchased or sells parts or all of the business, the information collected will be considered an asset that can be transferred.)
Data retention
Personal data is stored for varying lengths depending on the nature and purpose for which it was collected. We store personal data in line with any applicable statutory minimum periods, and then review it periodically (usually annually) to ensure it is still necessary to be retained for the purpose it was collected for. Where there is a statutory maximum for which data can be retained, such as County Court Judgements, we will delete accordingly on expiration.
Grounds of processing
In technical legal terms, we process personal data under the grounds of ‘legitimate interest’. ALERT BI’s legitimate business interest is the supply of commercial data and the marketing of our business. The purpose of this processing is to enable businesses to manage their financial risks and customer relations, protect against fraud, know who they are doing business with, communicate with potential new customers, meet compliance and regulatory obligations and to better understand organisations, industries and markets.
Data subject rights
You have the right to request from us confirmation of whether we are processing your personal data and, if so, access to that information. This may take up to 28 days. However, you may be able to obtain specific information about your personal data immediately by contacting Customer Services at [email protected]
If any of your personal data is inaccurate, you have a right to request rectification. We are very keen to ensure the data we hold is accurate and up-to-date.
Opting out
You have the right to object to our processing and/or request it is deleted, restricted or amended. In considering our response, we undertake to ensure that your interests andfundamental rights and freedoms are properly balanced against our legitimate interests. We will also look at whether it is still necessary to process your data for the purpose it was collected.
Before we are able to provide you with any information or correct any inaccuracies, we may ask you to verify your identity and to provide other details to help us identify you and respond to your request.
We will always observe your objection to receiving Alert BI marketing, by whatever channel. For this, please contact [email protected], providing details of the name, business name, address, telephone number and email address that you wish to have excluded. Or send a letter with your request by post to us at: Alert Business Information Ltd, 20 – 22 Wenlock Road, London, N1 7GU, United Kingdom.
Visiting our websites
By visiting our websites you are accepting and consenting to the practices described in this policy.
Information collected through the use of our website and use of this information includes:
- Contact Forms
Our website gives you the opportunity to provide information to us by filling in a contact form, eg to register for a free trial or demo; request a quote or information on our services; register for a webinar; or indicate your interest in a job opportunity at Alert BI. The information you give to us may include your name, address, email address and phone number, age and date of birth, employer information and information about your role.
We use this information to:
- Provide you with the information, products and services you request
- Provide you with information about other goods and services we offer that are similar to those you have already purchased or enquired about (unless you have told us not to provide such information to you)
- To personalise your experience on our website and ensure that our website is displayed in the most effective manner for you and your computer or other devices
Please be aware that data transfer via the internet (e.g. when communicating via email) is subject to security risks. Therefore, complete protection against third-party access to transferred data cannot be ensured.
- Log information
When you visit our website, we collect standard internet log information and details of visitor behaviour patterns, such as:
- Date and time of your visit
- type and version of the browser you use
- operating system
- your Internet Protocol (IP) address
The full URL clickstream to, through and from our website (e.g. websites that you have visited and products viewed or searched for; page response times; download errors; length of visits to certain pages; page interaction, such as scrolling, clicks and mouse-overs and methods used to browse away from the page; time zone setting; and plug in types and version for system administration) are anonymously collected.
This anonymous data enables us to further develop and enhance our website. We do not make any attempt to find your identity as a result of your visit to our website. We will not associate any data collected in this way with any personally identifying information from any other source in order to identify you.
- Newsletter and business updates
Our website offers you the opportunity to download and/or subscribe to the business updates we provide. To subscribe to this information, we require a valid email address. When subscribing to our business updates or our newsletter, we will store your IP address as well as the date and time. This serves to protect us in the event that a third party improperly and without your knowledge makes use of your email address to subscribe to our business updates, newsletter. We will not collect any other data.
The data thereby collected is used solely for the purpose of sending you our business updates or newsletters. No data is transferred to third parties, nor is any of this information matched to any information that other components of our websites may collect. If you download the business updates or newsletters, we use on-page tracking within Google Analytics. You may cancel your subscription to the business updates/ newsletters at any time.
We use third-party software and services for our email communications and we track user activity to ensure we are sending relevant content and providing a positive user experience.
- Use of registered user customer service area
When accessing the customer service area on our website reserved for registered users, you have to register using your unique user name and password. This information will be used to verify that you are an authorised user and not for any other purposes. In addition, we will record information about the services you have accessed through the registered user area, for accounting purposes to comply with our statutory obligations under applicable data protection laws (e.g. to document your legitimate interest for accessing data), and for our internal statistical and analytical purposes.
- Cookies
Our website makes use of cookies, pixel tags, local-shared objects (also called ‘flash cookies’) and similar technologies when you are browsing our website, to enable certain functionalities of our website, and to help us analyse user behaviour on the website in order to improve the customer experience. For more information about the cookies we use and how they work, please visit our Cookies Policy.
You can prevent cookies from being installed by adjusting the settings on your browser software accordingly. You should be aware, however, that by doing so you may not be able to make full use of all the functions of our website.
- Use of Google Analytics IP Anonymisation feature
Our websites use Google Analytics – a web-analysis service from Google Inc., 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043 USA (hereinafter ‘Google’). Google Analytics employs so-called ‘cookies’ – text files that are stored to your computer in order to facilitate an analysis of your use of our websites. The information generated by these cookies, such as time, place and frequency of your visits to our websites, including your IP address, is transmitted to Google’s location in the US and stored there. Google states that the IP address submitted by your browser will never be associated with other data held by Google.
We use Google Analytics with an IP anonymisation feature on our websites. In doing so, Google abbreviates and thereby anonymises your IP address before transferring it from member states of the European Union or signatory states to the Agreement on the European Economic Area. Google will use this information on our behalf to evaluate your usage of our site, to compile reports for us on your activity on our websites, and to provide us with other services related to website and internet usage. We use that information for statistical purposes. Google may also transfer this information to third parties if this is required by law or to the extent this data is processed by third parties on Google’s behalf.
We use Google Analytics, including the Universal Analytics function. Universal Analytics allows us to analyse activities on our websites across various devices (e.g. if you access our websites via your laptop and later via your tablet). This is achieved by allocating a pseudonym user ID to each user. Such allocation is undertaken when you register for a user account or when you log on with your unique username and password. No personal information will be passed on to Google. The addition of further functionalities to Google Analytics, through Universal Analytics, does not diminish or devalue measures taken to protect personal data such as IP-Masking or Browser-Add-ons.
You can prevent cookies from being installed by adjusting the settings on your browser software accordingly. You should be aware, however, that by doing so you may not be able to make full use of all the functions of our websites. Google offers a disabling option for the most common browsers, thus providing you with greater control over the data which is collected and processed by Google. If you enable this option, no information regarding visits to our websites is transmitted to Google Analytics. However, the activation does not prevent the transmission of information to us or to any other web analytics services we may use. For more information about the disabling option provided by Google and how to enable this option, visit: https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.
Handling our customers’ data
Sometimes our customers provide us with their business data – eg their customer, supplier or prospect data, which may contain personal data – in order for us to provide them with a service. In these instances we are the processor of any personal data contained in their data. Different parts of the GDPR apply when we act as a processor and we take these obligations very seriously. The above notice does not apply to our data received from our customers as this does not become ALERT BI data (unless the customer has expressly agreed to this).
Updating this Privacy Notice
We strive for continuous improvement in our services, processes and in protecting data subject rights. We will therefore update this privacy notice from time to time. Accordingly, we advise you to check this notice on a regular basis or, if requested, we will send it to you on a regular basis.
Complaints
All complaints or concerns and appropriate resolution relating to the practices of handling personal information will be logged. Any complaints of this nature should be made to [email protected] or by post to:
- Alert Business Intelligence Ltd
- 20 – 22 Wenlock Road
- London, N1 7GU, United Kingdom
- Telephone +44 (0) 20 8798 0405
