Who we are

Our website address is: https://astut.co.uk

What information we collect, use and why

We collect or use the following information to provide and improve products and services for clients:

• Names and contact details
• Addresses
• Usage data (including information about how you interact with and use our website, products and services)

We collect or use the following personal information for information updates or marketing purposes:

• Names and contact details
• Addresses
• Marketing preferences
• Website and app user journey information
• IP addresses

The following sections outline specific actions you might take on the astut.co.uk website:

Cookies

If you leave a comment on our site you may opt-in to saving your name, email address and website in cookies. These are for your convenience so that you do not have to fill in your details again when you leave another comment. These cookies will last for one year.

If you edit or publish an article, an additional cookie will be saved in your browser. This cookie includes no personal data and simply indicates the post ID of the article you just edited. It expires after 1 day.

Comments

If you leave comments on the site we collect the data shown in the comments form, and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection.

An anonymized string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here: https://automattic.com/privacy/. After approval of your comment, your profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment.

Media

If you upload images to the website, you should avoid uploading images with embedded location data (EXIF GPS) included. Visitors to the website can download and extract any location data from images on the website.

Embedded content from other websites

Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website.

These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.

Who we share your data with

We only share the data you provide to us with organisations that process the data submission. Your personal data is not passed on to any third-party for any other reason.

Data processors

• Spam Filtering – Filter spam from Contact Details and / or Comments submitted to our website
• Email Service Provider – Contact details and / or Comments submitted to our website are sent to us via an automated email service

How long we retain your data

If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This is so we can recognize and approve any follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue.

For users that contact us via the form on our website, we also store the personal information they provide in this form. We retain this contact data for up to one year after it is submitted.

What rights you have over your data

If you have left comments, you can request to receive an exported file of the personal data we hold about you, including any data you have provided to us. You can also request that we erase any personal data we hold about you. This does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.

Under UK data protection law, we must have a “lawful basis” for collecting and using your personal information. You can find more details on the Information Commission’s Office (ICO) website where there is a list of possible lawful bases in the UK GDPR. The lawful basis we rely on may affect your data protection rights which are set out in brief below:

• Your right of access – You have the right to ask us for copies of your personal information. You can request other information such as details about where we get personal information from and who we share personal information with. There are some exemptions which means you may not receive all the information you ask for. Read more about the right of access.
• Your right to rectification – You have the right to ask us to correct or delete personal information you think is inaccurate or incomplete. Read more about the right to rectification.
• Your right to erasure – You have the right to ask us to delete your personal information. Read more about the right to erasure.
• Your right to restriction of processing – You have the right to ask us to limit how we can use your personal information. Read more about the right to restriction of processing.
• Your right to object to processing – You have the right to object to the processing of your personal data. Read more about the right to object to processing.
• Your right to data portability – You have the right to ask that we transfer the personal information you gave us to another organisation, or to you. Read more about the right to data portability.
• Your right to withdraw consent – When we use consent as our lawful basis you have the right to withdraw your consent at any time. Read more about the right to withdraw consent.

If you make a request, we must respond to you without undue delay and in any event within one month.

To make a data protection rights request, please contact us clearly stating it is a “Data Projection Rights Request”