Privacy Policy

  • Privacy Policy

 

 

Shire Business Group of 1 Calico Business Park, Sandy Way, Amington, Tamworth, Staffordshire, B77 4BF (“Shire “) observes the highest standards of practice in all its activities and treats all the personal information it collects in strict compliance with the Data Protection Act 1998 (as amended from time to time) (the “DPA”).

For the purpose of the DPA, the data controller is Shire.  Our nominated representative for the purpose of the Act is Claire Andrews.

Shire are committed to attaining the best standards of practice and treat all your personal information as private and confidential. Therefore, we have implemented appropriate procedures to protect your privacy and confidentiality so that none of your personal information will be disclosed to anyone than in exceptional circumstances, as permitted by law or as set out below.

This Privacy Policy (together with our Website Terms and Conditions and the 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.

“Shire Business Group” means, as appropriate, any or all of the following companies: Shire Leasing PLC; Shire Insurance Services Limited; Shire Recoveries Limited; Shire Business Group Ltd; Shire Professional Funding Ltd; Shire Securities Limited and Shire Marketing Services Limited.

Changes to our Privacy Policy

We reserve the right to change this policy at any time and any changes we may make to our policy in the future will be posted on this page and not by individual written communication. Such changes will be effective from the time of posting and we therefore advise that you check this policy regularly. By continuing to access or use our site you will be agreeing to any such changes.

 Information we may collect from you

We will collect and process the following data about you:

  • Information you give us.

This is information about you that you give us by filling in forms on our site www.shirebusiness group.co.uk (“our site”) this includes:

  • information provided to Shire when you register to use our site, subscribe to our service or when you report a problem with our site
  • or by corresponding with us by phone, e-mail or otherwise.
  • details of transactions you carry out through our site and the services we provide to you.
  • the information you give us may include your name, address, e-mail address and phone number, and financial information.
  • Information we collect about you.

Details of your visits to our site including, but not limited to, traffic data, location data, and other communication data, whether this is required for our own record keeping purposes or otherwise and the resources that you access.

Personal information will not be kept longer than is reasonably necessary.

 Cookie Policy 

Shire uses cookies on its website. By using our website and agreeing to this policy, you consent to our use of cookies in accordance with the terms of this policy.

About cookies 

Cookies are information packets sent by web servers to web browsers, and stored by the web browsers.

The information is then sent back to the server each time the browser requests a page from the server. This enables a web server to identify and track web browsers.

There are two main kinds of cookies, session cookies and persistent cookies. Session cookies are deleted from your computer when you close your browser, whereas persistent cookies remain stored on your computer until deleted, or until they reach their expiry date.

Shire uses the following cookies on this website, for the following purposes:

  • DoubleClick – used by Google for ad tracking purposes. Whenever you visit a website with Google ads on it, a cookie is placed in your web browser by the ads and is used to track you across the Internet. You can erase this cookie from your computer by deleting the cookies from your web browser.
  • Quantcast Measurement – used by Joomla software to track web audience measurement. It provides detailed user demographics and audience insights. This information includes traffic, demographics, geography, business, site affinity and categories of interest.

Google cookies

Shire uses Google analytics to analyse the use of this website. Google Analytics generates statistical and other information about website use by means of cookies, which are stored on users’ computers. The information generated relating to our website is used to create reports about the use of the website. Google will store and use this information. Google’s privacy policy is available at: www.google.com/privacypolicy.html

Other/third party cookies
When you use this website, you may also be sent the following third party cookies, which may be used for the following purposes:

Twitter – Tracks whose profile you are viewing and which website you have come from.
LinkedIn – Tracks whose profile you are viewing and which website you have come from.
Bing – Tracks which location you are viewing and which website you have come from.

Refusing cookies
Most browsers allow you to refuse or accept cookies.
In Internet Explorer, you can refuse all cookies by clicking “Tools”, “Internet Options”, “Privacy”, and selecting “Block all cookies” using the sliding selector. In Firefox, you can adjust your cookies settings by clicking “Tools”, “Options” and “Privacy”.

Blocking cookies will have a negative impact upon the usability of some websites.

Information Security

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.

Uses made of the information

We use information held about you in the following ways:

  • To ensure that content from our site is presented in the most effective manner for you and for your computer.
  • To provide you with information, products or services that you request from us or which we feel may interest you, where you have consented to be contacted for such purposes.
  • To provide the best possible service we will need to contact you shortly before the maturity of any fixed term or fixed rate products. This ensures you are aware of the options available and helps you make an informed decision about your maturity instructions.
  • To notify you about changes to our service and to carry out our obligations arising from any contracts entered into between you and us.
  • To allow you to participate in interactive features of our service, when you choose to do so.

We may also use your data, or permit selected third parties to use your data, to provide you with information about goods and services which may be of interest to you and we or they may contact you about these by post or telephone.

If you are an existing customer, we will contact you by electronic means (e-mail or SMS) and telephone with information about goods and services similar to those which were the subject of a transaction or negotiations to you.

If you are a new customer, and where we permit selected third parties to use your data, we (or they) will contact you by electronic means only if you have consented to this.  If you do not want us to use your data in this way, or to pass your details on to third parties for marketing purposes, please tick the relevant box situated on the contract on which we collect your data.  You can also exercise the right at any time by contacting our Marketing Department (details below).

Information we receive from other sources.

We will combine this information with information you give to us and information we collect about you. We will use this information and the combined information for the purposes set out above (depending on the types of information we receive).

Disclosure of your information

You agree that we may:-

  • disclose information to third parties, including manufacturers, resellers, brokers, suppliers, funders, insurers, members of Shire Business Group, agents, subcontractors and carefully selected organisations so that they can use it to market their products and services
  • disclose information to credit reference agencies for the purpose of assessing your credit score where this is a condition of us entering into a contract with you
  • disclose information where required or permitted to do so by law, or to government entities or regulatory bodies in order that they may discharge their responsibilities and obligations or to exercise their powers or functions
  • disclose information if Shire 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.
  • disclose information 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 Website Terms and Conditions, or the terms and conditions of any agreement we have with you; or to protect the rights, property, or safety of Shire, our customers, or others. This includes exchanging information with other companies and organisations for the purposes of fraud protection and credit risk reduction.
  • market our products and services or those of our group or selected third parties.
  • transfer information to any country, including a destination outside the European Economic Area (EEA). It may also be processed by staff operating outside the EEA who work for us or a third party. Such staff may be engaged in, among other things, the processing of your payment details and the provision of support services. We will take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure that your data is treated securely and in accordance with this privacy policy. If no satisfactory data protection laws exist in the country to which we are transferring your personal data, we will put in place equivalent contractual safeguards to those contained in the Act.

We engage a third party to host and manage our site and as such they will require access to your personal data. We will use all reasonable endeavours to ensure that they treat your information in accordance with the Act.

Where We Store Your Personal Data

All information you provide to us is stored on our secure servers. 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.

 Your rights

You have the right to ask us not to process your personal data for marketing purposes. We will usually inform you (before collecting your data) if we intend to use your data for such purposes or if we intend to disclose your information to any third party for such purposes. You can exercise your right to prevent such processing by checking certain boxes situated on the contract between us we use to collect your data. You can also exercise the right at any time by contacting us at Shire Business Group, 1 Calico Business Park, Sandy Way, Tamworth, B77 4BF.

Our site may, from time to time, contain links to and from the websites of our 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. Please check these policies before you submit any personal data to these websites.

Access To Information

The DPA gives you the right to access information held about you. Your right of access can be exercised in accordance with the Act. Any access request will be subject to a fee of £10 to meet our costs in providing you with details of the information we hold about you and can be exercised at any time by contacting Shire on the address above.

If you think any details Shire hold about you are incorrect (for example out of date address), please write to our Marketing Department (details above). Any information which is incomplete/incorrect/out of date etc. shall be amended as soon as reasonably possible.

Use of personal information

In considering your application, we or our funders to whom we may assign our agreements may search your credit record at credit reference agencies (‘your records’). We or our funders may also search linked records of your spouse or partner. In this Agreement, we seek authority from you for us and our assignees to undertake and appoint credit reference agencies to undertake such searches. Such searches at credit references agencies may include searches against those to whom you may be linked, which may include your spouse/partner, your fellow directors (where you are a company) or other persons with whom you are linked financially. For the purposes of this Agreement/application, you agree that you may be treated as financially linked to such individuals and in such circumstances you will be assessed by reference to all such “associated records”.  Where you are a company, you will inform each director of the company of this notice. The credit reference agency will add to your records details of our search and your application and this will be seen by other organisations that make searches. We will use credit scoring or other automated decision making systems when assessing your application. We may also undertake further searches against you and any associations for the purpose of tracing and recovering debt.
We will also add to your records details of your Agreement with us, the payments you make under it, any default or failure to keep to its terms, and any change of address you fail to tell us about where a payment is overdue. It is important that you give us accurate information. We will check your details with fraud prevention agencies, and if you give us false or inaccurate information and we suspect fraud, we will record this.  We, the credit reference agencies and the fraud prevention agencies will also use your records for statistical analysis about credit, insurance and fraud.
We may undertake searches with Experian for the purposes of verifying your identity and for anti-money laundering purposes. To do so Experian may check the details you supply against any particulars on any database (public or otherwise) to which they have access. They may also use your details in the future to assist other companies for verification purposes. A record of the search will be retained. If you are a joint applicant, such as a partnership, unincorporated association or if you are a body corporate, such as a limited company or LLP or charity, you confirm to us that you have obtained the relevant consent to authorise us to create an identity search against any partner/ trustee /officer/ director/shareholder (as so required) at the credit reference agencies.
We may share or store your information with our funders and any person to whom we intend to assign our rights under this Agreement, and they may use your information or make further searches as they may require, in the same manner as set out above. Fraud prevention agency records will also be shared with other organisations to help make decisions on motor, household, credit, life and other insurance proposals and insurance claims, for you and members of your household. We may also use information about you to carry out market research

Information about all applicants will be collected and held on Shire’s systems and database and will be used to process your application and for ongoing account maintenance and administrative purposes. It will be held in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998 and we will only disclose it to other companies within our group, our lawyers, auditors, external advisors, agents and third parties as well as anyone to whom we transfer our rights and duties under your agreement with us, together with their lawyers, auditors and external advisors, agents and rating agencies.

We will also disclose your personal information to third party service providers who we engage from time to time but we will always endeavour to ensure that they hold it in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998.

Call Recording 

Should you ring one of the phone numbers advertised on any Shire website your calls may be recorded to help us improve our service, to assist us in training, to evidence communication between us and in the interests of security. We also record some of the outgoing calls that we make for the above reasons. You may voluntarily give personal data to enable you to request information from us or provide feedback.

CONTACT

Questions, comments and requests regarding this privacy policy are welcomed and should be addressed to Shire Business Group, 1 Calico Business Park, Sandy Way Tamworth, B77 4BF.