Privacy Policy

Introduction

This Privacy Notice explains the types of personal data we may collect about you when you interact with us. It also explains how we’ll store and handle that data and keep it safe.

We may need to update this Privacy Notice from time to time. We’ll notify you of any significant changes, please feel free to come back and check it whenever you wish.

Who are we?

Hifisound Limited is made up of four Hi-fi related companies all based in Stockton in an Old Spice Mill on the banks of the River Tees.

• Hifisound Limited – Parent company selling new Hi-fi equipment, mainly for the home. www.hifisound.co.uk
• Turntableworld –All new turntable related products - a sub set of products sold by Hifisound. www.turntableworld.co.uk
• 2ndhandhifi – currently the largest 2^nd hand hi-fi business in the country. www.2ndhandhifi.co.uk
• Decent Audio – Import leg of Hifisound Limited importing various Hi-fi products into the UK from around the world for onward sale to other retailers. www.decentaudio.co.uk

Why do we ask for your information?

We may collect and process your personal data for a number of reasons.

In specific situations, we can collect and process your data with your consent, for example, when you tick a box to receive email newsletters.

When collecting your personal data, we’ll always make clear to you which data is necessary in connection with a particular service.

In certain circumstances, we need your personal data to comply with our contractual obligations, for example, if you order an item from us for home delivery, we’ll collect your address details, to deliver your purchase, and pass them to our courier. Our courier may also require your telephone and email address for notification or to contact you during the process of delivery. The same applies if we are buying an item from you that needs to be collected from you by our courier or by us personally. 

If the law requires us to, we may need to collect and process your data. For example, we can pass on details of people involved in fraud or other criminal activity affecting us to law enforcement.

In specific situations, we require your data to pursue our legitimate interests in a way which might reasonably be expected as part of running our business and which does not materially impact your rights, freedom or interests.

For example, we may use your purchase history to send you or make available personalised offers. 

When do we collect your personal data?

• When you visit any of our websites and create or use your account to buy products from us, also if you purchase from us on the phone or personally in our shop.
• When you buy from us on any of our ebay accounts linked to our sites.
• When you make an online purchase and check out as a guest (in which case we just collect transaction-based data).
• When you contact us about buying products from you as part of our 2ndhandhifi business.
• When you engage with us on social media.
• When you contact us by any means with queries, complaints etc.
• When you enter prize draws or competitions.
• When you comment on or review our products and services.

What sort of personal data do we collect?

• If you have created an online account with us: your name, billing/delivery address, orders and receipts, email and telephone numbers. For your security, we’ll also keep an encrypted record of your login password.
• If you visit our shop or contact us by phone to place an order: your name, billing/delivery address, orders and receipts, email and telephone numbers.
• Details of your interactions with us in our shop or online.

• Details of your visits to our websites and which site you came from to ours.
• Information gathered by the use of cookies in your web browser. 
• Personal details which help us to recommend items of interest.
• If you have contacted us about buying goods from you: initially your name, email, telephone number and location in the country, then if this progresses to us purchasing from you -  full postal address for collection of goods.

We’ll only ask for and use your personal data collected for recommending items of interest and to tailor your shopping experience with us. Of course, it’s always your choice whether you share such details with us. 

• Payment card information.
• Your comments and product reviews. 
• Your image may be recorded on CCTV when you visit our shop or car park.
• Your car number plate may be recorded in our car park to manage parking restrictions.
• Your social media username, if you interact with us through those channels, to help us respond to your comments, questions or feedback.

How and why do we use your personal data?

To give you the best possible customer experience we discover who you are by combining the data we have about you.

The data privacy law allows this as part of our legitimate interest in understanding our customers and providing the highest levels of service.

If you wish to change how we use your data, you’ll find details in the ‘What are my rights?’ section below.

If you choose not to share your personal data with us, or refuse certain contact permissions, we might not be able to provide some services you’ve asked for. For example, if you’ve asked us to let you know when an item comes back into stock, we can’t do that if you’ve withdrawn your general consent to hear from us.

See details below of how we’ll use your personal data and why:

• To process any orders that you make by using our websites or in our shop. If we don’t collect your personal data during checkout, we won’t be able to process your order and comply with our legal obligations.

For example, your details may need to be passed to a third party to supply or deliver the product that you ordered, and we may keep your details for a reasonable period afterwards in order to fulfil any contractual obligations such as refunds, guarantees and so on.

• To respond to your queries, refund requests and complaints. Handling the information you sent enables us to respond. We may also keep a record of these to inform any future communication with us and to demonstrate how we communicated with you throughout. We do this on the basis of our contractual obligations to you, our legal obligations and our legitimate interests in providing you with the best service and understanding how we can improve our service based on your experience. 
• To protect our business and your account from fraud and other illegal activities. This includes using your personal data to maintain, update and safeguard your account. We’ll also monitor your browsing activity with us to quickly identify and resolve any problems and protect the integrity of our websites. We’ll do all of this as part of our legitimate interest. For example, by checking your password when you login and using automated monitoring of IP addresses to identify possible fraudulent log-ins from unexpected locations.

• To protect our customers, premises and assets from crime, we operate CCTV systems in our shop and car park which record images for security. We do this on the basis of our legitimate business interests.
• To process payments and to prevent fraudulent transactions. We do this on the basis of our legitimate business interests. This also helps to protect our customers from fraud.
• If we discover any criminal activity or alleged criminal activity through our use of CCTV, fraud monitoring and suspicious transaction monitoring, we will process this data for the purposes of preventing or detecting unlawful acts.
• With your consent, we may in future use your personal data, preferences and details of your transactions to potentially keep you informed by email, web, text or telephone about relevant products and services including tailored special offers, discounts, promotions, events, competitions and so on.

You are free to opt out of hearing from us by any of these channels at any time.

• To send you communications required by law or which are necessary to inform you about our changes to the services we provide you. For example, updates to this Privacy Notice, product recall notices, and legally required information relating to your orders. These service messages will not include any promotional content and do not require prior consent when sent by email or text message. If we do not use your personal data for these purposes, we would be unable to comply with our legal obligations.
• To display the most interesting content to you on our websites, we may use data we hold about your favourite brands or products and so on. We will do so on the basis of your consent. For example, we might display a list of items you’ve recently looked at or offer you recommendations based on your purchase history and any other data you’ve shared with us.

• To administer any future prize draws or competitions which you enter, based on your consent given at the time of entering.

• To comply with our contractual or legal obligations to share data with law enforcement. For example, when a court order is submitted to share data with law enforcement agencies or a court of law

You are free to opt out of receiving these requests from us at any time by updating your preferences in your online account.

How we protect your personal data

We know how much data security matters to all our customers. With this in mind we will treat your data with the utmost care and take all appropriate steps to protect it.

We secure access to all transactional areas of our websites using ‘https’ technology.

Access to your personal data is password-protected, and sensitive data such as payment card information) is secured to ensure it is protected.

How long will we keep your personal data?

Whenever we collect or process your personal data, we’ll only keep it for as long as is necessary for the purpose for which it was collected.

At the end of that retention period, your data will either be deleted completely or anonymised, for example by aggregation with other data so that it can be used in a non-identifiable way for statistical analysis and business planning.

Who do we share your personal data with?

We sometimes share your personal data with trusted third parties. For example, delivery couriers, Legal bodies for fraud management, Suppliers to handle complaints.

Here’s the policy we apply to those organisations to keep your data safe and protect your privacy:

• We provide only the information they need to perform their specific services.
• They may only use your data for the exact purposes we specify in our contract with them.
• We work closely with them to ensure that your privacy is respected and protected at all times.
• If we stop using their services, any of your data held by them will either be deleted or rendered anonymous.

Examples of the kind of third parties we work with are:

• IT companies who support our website and other business systems.
• Operational companies such as delivery couriers.
• Google/Facebook to show you products that might interest you while you’re browsing the internet. This is based on either your marketing consent or your acceptance of cookies on our websites. See our Cookies Notice for details. 

Sharing your data with third parties for their own purposes:

We will only do this in very specific circumstances, for example:

• For fraud management, we may share information about fraudulent or potentially fraudulent activity in our premises or systems. This may include sharing data about individuals with law enforcement bodies.
• We may also be required to disclose your personal data to the police or other enforcement, regulatory or Government body, in your country of origin or elsewhere, upon a valid request to do so. These requests are assessed on a case-by-case basis and take the privacy of our customers into consideration.
• Were we to expand, reduce or sell the business and this may involve the transfer of parts or the whole business to new owners. If this happens, your personal data will, where relevant, be transferred to the new owner or controlling party, under the terms of this Privacy Notice.
• For further information please contact our Data Protection Officer.

To help personalise your journey through our websites we currently use the following companies, who will process your personal data as part of their contracts with us:

• Paypal
• Global Payments
• HSBC
• Secure Trading
• ebay
• Google
• Twitter
• Instagram
• YouTube
• Facebook

What are your rights over your personal data?

You have the right to request:

• Access to the personal data we hold about you, free of charge in most cases.
• The correction of your personal data when incorrect, out of date or incomplete.
• For example, when you withdraw consent, or object and we have no legitimate overriding interest, or once the purpose for which we hold the data has come to an end (such as the end of a warranty).
• That we stop using your personal data for direct marketing (either through specific channels, or all channels).
• That we stop any consent-based processing of your personal data after you withdraw that consent.

You have the right to request a copy of any information about you that the business holds at any time, and also to have that information corrected if it is inaccurate. To ask for your information, please contact Data Protection Officer, Hifisound Limited, Castlegate Mill, Quayside, Stockton on Tees, TS18 1BZ, or email DPO@hifisound.co.uk. To ask for your information to be amended, please update your online account, or contact our Data Protection team.

If we choose not to action your request we will explain to you the reasons for our refusal.

Your right to withdraw consent

Whenever you have given us your consent to use your personal data, you have the right to change your mind at any time and withdraw that consent.

Where we rely on our legitimate interest

In cases where we are processing your personal data on the basis of our legitimate interest, you can ask us to stop for reasons connected to your individual situation. We must then do so unless we believe we have a legitimate overriding reason to continue processing your personal data.

Direct marketing

You have the right to stop the use of your personal data for direct marketing activity through all channels, or selected channels. We must always comply with your request.

Checking your identity

To protect the confidentiality of your information, we will ask you to verify your identity before proceeding with any request you make under this Privacy Notice. If you have authorised a third party to submit a request on your behalf, we will ask them to prove they have your permission to act.

How can you stop the use of Personal data for marketing purposes?

There are several ways you can stop direct marketing communications from us:

• Click the ‘unsubscribe’ link in any email communication that we send you. We will then stop any further emails from that particular division of the company.
• If you have an account, log in into your Hifisound, Turntableworld or 2ndhandhifi account, visit the ‘My Account’ area and change your preferences.
• Write to Data Protection Officer, Hifisound Limited, Castlegate Mill, Quayside, Stockton on Tees TS18 1BZ.

Please note that you may continue to receive communications for a short period after changing your preferences while our systems are fully updated.

Contacting the regulator

If you feel that your data has not been handled correctly, or you are unhappy with our response to any requests you have made to us regarding the use of your personal data, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office.

You can contact them by calling 0303 123 1113.
Or go online to www.ico.org.uk/concerns (opens in a new window; please note we can't be responsible for the content of external websites)

If you are based outside the UK, you have the right to lodge your complaint with the relevant data protection regulator in your country of residence.

Any questions?

If you have any questions that haven’t been covered, please contact our Data Protection Officer who will be pleased to help you:

• Email us at DPO@hifisound.co.uk
• Or write to us at Data Protection Officer, Hifisound Limited, Castlegate Mill, Quayside, Stockton on Tees. TS18 1BZ

This notice was last updated on 17/05/2018