Privacy Policy

Effective Date: 10th May 2018. Last update: 13th July 2024

At Essential Aids, we are committed to protecting your personal data and respecting your privacy. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, and safeguard your personal information to provide you with an excellent shopping experience.

Overview of Our Privacy Commitments

Respect and Privacy: We promise to respect your personal information by keeping it safe and private.
Data Collection for Delivery: We collect your delivery name and address to pass on to couriers (mainly Royal Mail and Parcelforce) for order delivery.
Billing Information: We collect billing names and addresses to verify payment details and prevent fraud.
Email Address Usage: We collect your email address to send you order and delivery confirmations. We also use it for marketing purposes, as detailed below.
Telephone Numbers: We collect telephone numbers to contact you if there are any issues with your order or to follow up on an inquiry.
VAT Relief Claims: For those completing a VAT Relief claim, we collect the user’s name and medical condition, which is kept securely and used only to adhere to tax regulations.
Analytics and Tracking: We use tracking and analytics technologies to provide a better shopping experience.
Data Security: We conduct monthly independent tests to ensure your data remains secure.
Your Rights: You have rights regarding your data, detailed further below.
No Data Selling: We do not sell your information to third parties.

Who We Are

Essential Aids full company name is Essential Aids (essentialaids.com) Limited. We are registered in England and Wales under company registration number 0529 4779 and our registered office is at Essex Office, Millhouse, 32-38 East Street, Rochford, Essex SS4 1DB. We are the data controller responsible for your personal data and operate the essentialaids.com website.

We mainly operate out of a warehouse in Lancashire at Unit 1, Brook Mill Estate, Station Road, Wrea Green, PR4 2PH.

We provide daily living aids, care equipment, and other products to help individuals lead an independent lifestyle. We are bound by data protection laws in handling your personal data. Our ICO registration number is ZB720152.

Contact Us

If you have any queries about our Privacy Policy or wish to exercise your data rights, please contact us via our Contact page linked on every page of our website.

Personal Data We Collect

Essential Aids collects data to ensure you have the best shopping experience and to fulfill your orders. Types of data we collect include:

Order Data: Information you provide when placing an order.
Transaction Data: Payments made and items purchased.
Enquiry Data: Information you provide when sending an enquiry.
Website Usage Data: Information on how you use our website, using third-party technologies like Google Analytics.
Call Recordings: Calls may be recorded for training purposes.

We do not obtain personal contact data from third parties. We work with affiliates who may link to our site, but they do not receive personal order details.

Information Provided Directly by You

We collect the following personal data when you place an order:

Contact Data: Title, first and last name, email address, postal address, phone number for billing and delivery purposes.
Order Data: Details of goods and services you purchase.
Medical Condition: For VAT Relief claims, we collect the name and long-term medical condition of the person the goods are for.
Payment Details: Payment information collected securely by Stripe and PayPal. We do not store any credit card details.
Cookie Preferences: Your preferences regarding third-party Cookies.

Additional Information You May Provide

We also collect information from product reviews, customer care queries, and any messages you send us. Any recorded calls are kept securely and deleted after 6 months.

Who Can Access Your Data?

Our Customer Services team primarily handles customer data and order information. Data is archived after 12 months with limited access to our Admin and Product Development teams.

Special Categories of Personal Data

For VAT Relief claims, we are obliged to collect and securely store the name and medical condition of the person the goods are for. This data is used solely for VAT Relief claims and is not used for any other purpose.

We do not collect special category data such as race, ethnicity, religious beliefs, sex life, sexual orientation, political opinions, trade union membership, genetic and biometric data, or criminal convictions and offences.

Usage Data and Cookies

We use cookies to enhance your shopping experience by tracking your visit to our website. These cookies do not contain personal information and help you add items to your basket and complete purchases. Third-party cookies are used for:

Relevant Results: Presenting relevant results based on your browsing history.
Specialist Advertising: Providing targeted advertising based on your browsing activity.
Website Analytics: Collecting usage data through Google Analytics to understand website performance. This data is anonymous.

You can disable cookies in your browser settings, but this may affect your shopping experience.

Data Disclosure

We may share your data with reputable businesses and data processors to provide you with a great service, ensuring they comply with data protection laws. Please note:

We do not share your data for third-party marketing purposes.
We may disclose data to regulatory bodies like HMRC or the police if required by law.
Data may be shared with parties involved in business acquisitions or sales.

Data Storage and Security

We take data storage security seriously:

Your data is stored on secure servers.
Some data may be transferred and stored outside the EEA by approved data processors.
Access to data is strictly limited to necessary personnel.
Transaction records are kept for at least 6 years as required by law.
Printed order details are securely handled and professionally shredded.

Marketing

You can easily opt-out or amend your preferences with each email. Customers will receive email marketing based on our legitimate interest in providing beneficial offers and information. Personalised advertising will depend upon your cookie choices and personal browser settings.

See below about the 4 key areas where we have we have a legitimate interest to use your data.

Data Breach

In the unlikely event of a data breach, we will notify affected individuals within 3 working days via email.

Your Rights

You have the right to:

Access the data we hold about you by making a Subject Access Request.
Correct any incorrect data.
Request the deletion of your data, subject to our legal obligations to retain certain information.
Control your marketing preferences.

Contacting Us

To exercise your rights or for any questions or complaints about how we handle your personal data, please contact us via our website. We aim to resolve all requests and concerns promptly.

You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the UK Information Commissioner's Office (ICO).

Thank You

Thank you for reading our Privacy Policy. Your privacy is important to us, and we are fully committed to the GDPR principles. If you have any concerns about how we handle your personal data, please let us know, and we will work to address them.

Link to ICO for reporting concerns

Legitimate Interests for the Use of Personal Data

Summary

We have identified four key areas where we have a legitimate interest to use personal data collected from orders: order fulfillment, responding to queries, inviting reviews, and email marketing.

1. Order Fulfillment

We collect billing and delivery names, addresses, and contact details to:

Verify billing details and detect fraud.
Dispatch orders through couriers such as Royal Mail, Parcelforce, and FDC.
Send order and dispatch confirmations via email.
Contact customers by email or phone if there are issues with the order.

2. Responding to Queries

We collect contact information provided directly by customers to:

Provide accurate quotes based on your location.
Share data with select suppliers and partners for assessments (e.g., bespoke ramp quotes or help with disability equipment installation costs).
Follow up on queries via email, mail, or phone.
Complete credit applications where applicable.

3. Inviting Reviews

We invite customers to review our service and products because:

Reviews help customers make informed buying decisions and build trust.

We conducted a three-stage test to confirm this legitimate interest:

Identification: Reviews benefit both customers and the company by providing feedback and trustworthiness.
Necessity: Without reviews, feedback would be imbalanced and less reliable. Invitations increase the number of reviews. See https://www.podium.com/guides/small-business-review-trends/ where the 2021 State of Reviews demonstrates how important reviews are to online purchases.
Balancing: Service and product reviews are vital for online trust and decision-making. Invitations are essential for collecting these reviews.

Outcome: Overall, reviews bring balance and trust to online retail. This is one of the things that is good about the internet - giving people the means to collaboration and the ability to share your feedback to help others in their decisions. Reviews are people power that are of equal benefit to customers, potential customers and the company. We therefore feel that asking to review us is a legitimate interest.

4. Email Marketing

We have conducted a three-stage test to confirm that email marketing to our customers is a legitimate interest:

Identification: Marketing keeps customers informed about our products and services, driving sales and offering value.
Necessity: Considering that our customers respond well to our newsletters, we can only conclude that they also benefit from learning about new products and pricing that can help them. Email marketing accounts for a significant portion of our sales and is critical to our business. For customers, the products they buy from us are usually for a need rather than a want so we help them discover other items that should also be beneficial for their own independence and dignity of life.
Balancing: Customers expect our newsletters, which are well-received and beneficial. We have always respected privacy and provide an easy opt-out along with options to receive newsletters over varying frequencies. A link to this is in every marketing email under the banner: "You're in control". We do not use any GDPR Article 9 personal medical data for marketing. We also conduct regular data cleansing routines and won't email customers who haven't bought from us for the last 1.5 years.

Outcome: As a business that sells largely needs-based products and services, we have carefully considered how we continue to market to our customer database in the age of GDPR. We feel it's more important to not miss out on follow-up products which may well help a customer and give them a very easy way to control the way we market to them which we will remind them of with every marketing email. None of emails will be forcing anything upon anyone. We have established a legal basis on which to continue to market to our customer database on the grounds that our marketing is both beneficial to our customers and is commercially vital to our business.