Read our privacy policy here

PRIVACY POLICY

This is an important notice regarding your privacy and the way in which Andreas Stihl Limited (referred to as “we”, “our” or “us” in this policy) collects and makes use of your personal data. We want to be open and transparent with you, and therefore encourage you to contact us if you have any questions about this policy or the ways in which we use your personal data.

This policy strictly applies to our business contacts, Approved Dealers, applicant dealers and generally. We take our privacy responsibilities seriously and are committed to protecting and respecting your privacy.

This policy 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. 

For the purpose of applicable privacy legislation, the data controller is Andreas Stihl Limited of Contra House, Oak Close, Camberley, Surrey, United Kingdom, GU15 3GF. Our company registration number is 01376302.

Questions regarding this policy should be directed to our Data Protection Officer. The Data Protection Officer is responsible for ensuring compliance with relevant data protection legislation and with this Policy and can be contacted at compliance@stihl.co.uk

Any questions about the operation of this policy or any concerns that the policy has not been followed should be referred in the first instance to the Data Protection Officer.

1. What information do we hold about you?

We may collect, store and use personal data about you (referred to throughout this Privacy Policy as personal information).

Business contacts

• Contact details such as your name, title, business telephone number and business e-mail address.
• Information that you provide or we collect during our interactions with you or your employer, such as how long we have done business with you or how long you have worked at your company.
• Your contact details to provide you with information on our products and services. This may include technical information and/or marketing information.
• Bank details of individual sole traders.

Approved Dealers and applicant dealers

• Contact details of your officers and employees such as names, title, business address, telephone number, e-mail address.
• Information that you provide or we collect during our interactions with you or your employee, such as how long we have done business with you.
• Bank details of your employees where they wish to submit payments to us via their individual company credit card.
• Travel documentation (if you provide these documents) including passport details to attend one of our trips.
• Any information you provide to us relating to your health or dietary requirements, for example, for catering and hospitality purposes.
• Your next of kin details when planning to attend one of our trips.

Generally

• If you visit our offices, images and videos are recorded by the CCTV system in operation on our premises.
• If you visit our offices out of normal working hours, live CCTV images and video maybe monitored by us or our security providers.
• Information gathered when you visit our offices via our visitor sign-in process, including your name.
• If you visit our offices and login to our guest Wi-Fi network, information may be collected about your usage.
• Any personal information you provide to us during your interactions with us.
• Photos and/or videos of you which may be taken at one of our events, on one of our trips or in connection with one of our promotions or any other way.
• Information gathered by cookies used on our website. Our website uses cookies to distinguish you from other users of our website. This helps us to provide you with a good experience when you browse and also allows us to improve the way our website works. For detailed information on the cookies we use and the purposes for which we use them please refer to our Cookie Policy.
• Information provided to us by third party service providers we work with, for example, payment service or analytics providers.

2. How will we use your personal information and what is the legal ground we rely on for doing so?

We will only use your personal information when the law allows us to. When we use your personal information, we must have a legal ground for doing so. The following are (amongst others) the legal grounds by which we can use your personal information:

• Where you have provided us with your consent for us to do so;
• Where we need to perform the contract we have entered into with you or to take steps to enter into a contract with you;
• Where we need to comply with a legal obligation to which we are subject;
• Where it is in pursuit of our legitimate interests (or those of a third party) and your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests.

More specifically, we will use your personal information in the following circumstances:

Business contacts

• Your contact details to provide you with information on our products and services. This may include technical information and/or marketing information – in pursuit of our legitimate interests in keeping you informed about our products, services and business updates.
• Your bank details to process payments from or due to you – to perform a contract with you

Approved Dealers and applicant dealers

• Your contact details – in pursuit of our legitimate interests (to facilitate business between you or your business and us).
• Your payment information – to perform the contract with you.
• Your travel documentation – in pursuit of our legitimate interests in facilitating dealer trips.
• Your personal details to provide training to you and record training provided by us – in pursuit of our legitimate interests in demonstrating that we have fulfilled our training commitment to you.
• Your exam results from training courses – in pursuit of our legitimate interest to accurately keep records of your training with us.
• Your next of kin information – in pursuit of our legitimate interests (to contact in the event of an emergency).
• Images of you captured by photo and/or video – where you have provided us with your consent for us to do so.
• Any information you provide to us relating to your health or dietary requirements, for example, for catering and hospitality purposes – where you provide your consent for us to do so or where processing is necessary to protect your vital interests.

Generally

• To ensure our premises are kept secure – in pursuit of our legitimate interests (in ensuring our premises are kept secure and to keep evidence of this).
• Health and safety purposes – to comply with a legal obligation.
• To track your Wi-Fi usage – in pursuit of our legitimate interests (in ensuring our network is being used for acceptable purposes).
• Images of you captured by photo and/or video – where you have provided us with your consent for us to do so.
• To administer our website and for internal operations, including troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, research, statistical and survey purposes – in pursuit of our legitimate interests (to better understand how people interact with our website and solve any issues it may have).
• To improve our website to ensure that content is presented in the most effective manner for you and your computer – in pursuit of our legitimate interests (to improve our content and your experience).
• To transfer to third party service providers – in pursuit of our legitimate interests (in outsourcing for effectiveness and efficiency).
• To contact you if we wish to use your information for a purpose not set out in this policy – to comply with a legal obligation.

3. What happens if there is a change of purpose?

We will only use your personal information for the purposes for which we collected it, unless we reasonably consider that we need to use it for another reason that is compatible with the original purpose. 

If we need to use your personal information 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 where this is required or permitted by law.

4. Which type of third parties might we share your personal information with?

We require third parties to respect the security of your personal information and to treat it in accordance with the law. For example, where we instruct third party service providers, we carry out due diligence on those providers to ensure they treat your personal information as seriously as we do.

We may share your personal information with the following types of third parties:

• Technical support providers, for example, assisting with our website.
• Professional advisers such as lawyers, accountants and business analysts.
• Providers which help us collate and organise information effectively and securely.
• Providers which help us generate and collate surveys and reviews of our products and services.
• Providers which assist us with marketing by, for example, helping us send marketing mailshots and providing catalogues.
• Providers which help us with logistics and delivery solutions.
• Third party software hosting companies which provide us with software solutions.
• Providers which host our servers in their data centres (covered by relevant legal mechanisms).
• Providers which help us book and manage our trips such as airlines, hotels and travel agents.
• Insurance companies to ensure that adequate insurance cover is in place for the duration of the trip.

5. Data retention

How long will we use your personal information for?

We will only retain your personal information for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for.

We assess the appropriate retention period for different information based on the size, volume, nature and sensitivity of that information, the potential risk of harm to you from unauthorised use or disclosure of that information, the purposes for which we are using that information, applicable legal requirements for holding that information, and whether we can achieve those purpose(s) through other means.

Business contacts

The period we keep your personal information depends on a number of circumstances. For example:

• Where we have collected your personal information during the course of your and our organisations doing business, we will keep your personal information for as long as this business continues, or for as long as we have a commercial interest in holding your personal information, for example, with a view to doing business in the future.
• We will keep your bank account details for as long as we do business together or for as long as we have a commercial interest in holding your personal information, for example, with a view to doing business in the future.
• Where you have provided us with your personal information during the course of making a complaint, we will keep this information for 6 years.
• Where you use our website and one of our cookies are activated, that cookie will operate for the duration set out in our Cookie Policy.

Approved dealers and applicant dealers

• We will keep your passport, sensitive personal information and next of kin details for the duration of the Approved Dealer trip and delete it thereafter.
• We will keep a note of your attendance on one of our trips for our commercial records.
• We will keep your training records and exam results for the period during which that certificate or training remains valid.
• Where we have collected your personal information during the course of your and our organisations doing business, we will keep your personal information for as long as this business continues, or for as long as we have a commercial interest in holding your personal information, for example, with a view to doing business in the future.

Generally

• Any data collected through our visitor sign-in system is stored for 10 days only.
• Any data collected through our CCTV system is stored for 31 days only.

6. Transfer of data

Where we use third party service providers to assist us, your personal information may also be stored in accordance with their practices and procedures. We require third parties to respect your personal information and to treat it in accordance with the law. 

We may share your personal information within the STIHL Group. This will involve transferring your data outside the UK. 

Whenever we transfer your personal data out of the UK, we ensure a similar degree of protection is afforded to it 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.
• We may use specific contracts approved for use in the UK which give personal data the same protection it has in the UK. 

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. Rights of access, correction, erasure and restriction

Your rights in connection with your personal information 

Under certain circumstances, by law you have the right to:

• Request access to your personal information (known as a “data subject access request”). This enables you to receive a copy of the personal information we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.
• Request correction of the personal information that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate information we hold about you corrected.
• Request the erasure of your personal information. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal information when there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. You also have the right to ask us to stop processing personal information where we are relying on a legitimate interest and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground.
• Request the restriction of processing of your personal information. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of personal information about you, for example if you want us to establish its accuracy or the reason for processing it.
• Request the transfer of your personal information to another party.

If you want to review, verify, correct or request erasure of your personal information, object to the processing of your personal data, or request that we transfer a copy of your personal information to another party, please contact our Data Protection Officer in writing using the contact details set out at the beginning of this Privacy Policy.

9. No fee usually required

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

10. 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 any personal information (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is a security measure to ensure that personal information is not disclosed to another person who has no right to receive it.

11. Right to withdraw consent

In the limited circumstances where you may have provided your consent to the collection, processing and transfer of your personal information for a specific purpose, you have the right to withdraw your consent for that specific processing at any time. To withdraw your consent, please contact our Data Protection Officer in writing using the contact details set out at the beginning of this Privacy Policy.

Where we are providing you with marketing information, you can also change your marketing preferences by using the unsubscribe button at the bottom of our marketing e-mails sent to you.

Once we have received notification that you have withdrawn your consent, we will no longer process your personal information for the purpose or purposes you originally agreed to, unless we have another legitimate basis for doing so.

12. What happens if you fail to provide personal information?

If you fail to provide certain information when requested, we may not be able to perform the contract we have entered into with you (such as providing you with our products or services), or we may be prevented from complying with our legal obligations (such as to ensure the health and safety of visitors to our premises).

13. Right to complain

You have the right to make a complaint if you wish to do so. The organisation with oversight of our processing is the Information Commissioner’s Office, which can be contacted in writing at Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF, by telephone (0303 123 1113) or by e-mail (casework@ico.org.uk).

We would, however, appreciate the opportunity to deal with your concerns before you approach the ICO so please contact us in the first instance.

14. Changes to this privacy notice

We may change, modify, add or remove portions of this policy at any time, and any changes will become effective immediately.

Any changes we make to our Privacy Policy will be posted on this page. and, where appropriate, notified to you.